


succor

by lieselss



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: s03e18-21 Sozin's Comet, Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:27:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29410473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lieselss/pseuds/lieselss
Summary: In the heart of the Fire Nation, exhausted but victorious, a boy and a girl wait for deliverance that will never come. That is to say, Sozin's comet comes and goes. Ozai defeats Aang. There are consequences to that.Katara, Zuko, and the making of myths.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 41
Kudos: 145





	1. The Story

**Author's Note:**

> More extensive thoughts at the end but if you're wondering the mood I was in writing this, check out the following songs:
> 
> seven devils - florence & the machine // soldier - fleurie // which witch - florence & the machine // devil's backbone - the civil wars // achilles come down - gang of youths // water witch - the secret sisters // kingdom come - the civil wars // wolves - down like silver

_It happens like this:  
_ _High above the Earth Kingdom, a hand slips.  
_ _An airship never resurfaces.  
_ _A warrior burns with an apology on his lips.  
_ _In a rocky field, the world's hope disappears in the rubble.  
_ _And in the heart of the Fire Nation, exhausted but victorious, a boy and a girl wait for deliverance that will never come._

___

"Left. Then one more left, then the second door," he rasps, voice crackling, while doing his best not to collapse and drag Katara down with him. Her left hand rests cool and firm against his abdomen, splayed wide pinky to thumb, not quite covering the purpling wound.

It’s fascinating in its destruction. The lightning left tendrils that branch out like a web across his torso, over his ribs, up his sternum. It's certainly much prettier than his other familial scar. Two down-- all he needs now is a strike from Uncle and he'll have hit the trifecta.

The thought amuses him but he doesn't think Katara will laugh. Maybe smell of burnt flesh was making him delirious.

"Careful," Katara says, lowering him onto soft blankets. She looks around the lavish, crimson room. "Where are we, anyway?"

"My room. Or what used to be my room," he says, reaching for a pillow to prop under his head. He'd never had many personal effects but the room seems sterile even despite that, as if someone had come to wash away all trace of him. Katara swats his hand away and grabs the pillow for him, easing him forward to settle it behind his head.

She scrambles up on the opposite end of the bed, sitting criss-cross alongside him, hands glowing over his raw torso. She keeps close watch on the inflamed, raw skin and the rise and fall of his chest but avoids his face.

“Now what?” she asks.

The million gold piece question.

The hallways of the palace are eerily quiet and tension is a pall in the air. The Fire Sages had skittered away when Katara pulled him to his feet. He’d seen not a single hint of a servant. In all his years this place had never been so quiet. 

“Maybe we should leave.”

“What?”

It’s fair for her to be incredulous, they’d fought so hard to get here. But an unease he associates with his father has been creeping in since he saw Azula’s unhinged look. 

“Until we know for sure...”

“Zuko,” she says, exasperated. “You can’t move. I’m doing my best but you have an open wound on your chest. You won the Agni Kai, the sages saw. This is your birthright.”

She insists it with a conviction he’s jealous of. 

"Then maybe you should take Appa..."

"Stop it!" she says, angry now as she finally meets his gaze, eyes blazing. "I'm not leaving you behind," she fires the words at him and they hurt when they hit their mark— a deep ache so bad it almost feels like relief— for reasons his pain addled brain can't process right now. They feel like a premonition and maybe he's spent too much time with Aang, jumping to omens and premonitions. A beat passes and her voice drops softer.

"You saved my life. Let me help you."

It's an admonishment and a plea all at once. He wants to argue they debt is already been repaid, she’d saved his life right back. But honestly he’s so damn tired.

He sighs, relaxing further into the pillows. He'd never admit it to the group but he'd missed the creature comforts of being royalty. He nods his assent and drifts to sleep under gentle hands.

He dreams of his coronation.

___

She wakes to a nightmare. It’s well past midday and the high sun shines through the crack in the velvet curtains, bathing the red room in shades of orange.

Her neck hurts from falling asleep upright against the headboard and rough hands are pulling her from the soft bed. When she tries to call from her water skin, not a single muscle responds.

She yells and swears a streak that would shock her father as she sees a flash of dingy pink hovering around Zuko, striking his pressure points and improbably, _apologizing_ as she does so.

"Leave him alone!" Katara hollers.

No one answers her, not the circus girl or the masked guards, save for the one to her right who cuffs her so hard on the back of the head her vision swims.

"Zuzu, honestly, a girl goes to prison over her misplaced affection for you and you repay her by jumping in bed with a peasant?"

Katara can't even process the absurdity of the statement because her blood's run cold at the voice issuing it.

"Of course she already knew you were a traitor so she won't be so shocked, I suppose."

Zuko doesn't struggle much against the hands that drag him by his biceps to the floor, either too incapacitated or weak to fight them off. His robe falls open and she can see where he'd begun to bleed through his bandages. Azula notices too, eyes flicking almost imperceptibly to the dressings.

Zuko's knees buckle soon as his feet hit the ground and he kneels involuntarily before his sister, keeled over if it weren't for the guards nearly yanking his arms from their sockets. He looks frustrated and anxious but not exactly surprised.

Azula is dressed in fine robes and her uneven hair is pulled into something resembling a topknot but the wild expression in her eyes is the same as she'd worn the day before.

"You lost, Azula," Zuko says mildly, as if they were having a conversation about the weather. As if they hadn't been stripped of their bending by a flexible freak who has the gall to act teary eyed while cowering at Azula's side. As if the girl in question hadn't tried to kill them 24 hours prior (and countless times before that). "Dishonorably, I might add."

"Yes well, that may be true but Father still likes me more than you. You know that, of course. I think my seat will be just fine when he gets home."

She might as well have stabbed Katara in the heart. "You're lying!" she shouts, unable to help the choked noise that escapes her, earning her another blow that makes her head spin. Zuko notices the strike this time and wrestles ineffectually against his captors, sagging back with a grimace after a brief moment’s exertion. Azula watches him carefully and then spins on her heel to face her, a wide grin spreading across her face.

"Oh I'm not lying this time, peasant. The Avatar is well and truly dead. For real, Zuko, Father won't have to bear your deception again."

Zuko gapes momentarily, looking ready to argue the point— she'd been the one to fail last time, thanks to Katara and the spirits—-but he sets his mouth in a thin line instead.

"So what? You're here to finish us off?"

He asks the question casually and Katara is _this_ close to an absolute breakdown. Agreeing to fight Azula was one thing but being involved in this demented family dynamic was quite another. Such nonchalance about murdering their siblings. 

Not to mention there's the very real fear that that is _exactly_ Azula's plan. Or Ozai's, when he returns. It's nearly to crazy to comprehend the idea that at freshly fifteen someone her own age wants her dead, much less a grown adult. But then again, apparently Ozai had no qualms about killing a thirteen year old who wouldn't have even returned the favor given a chance.

She's so deep into her spiral, trying to comprehend that magnitude of evil, that she scarcely notices the guards lifting her to a standing position and almost misses the princess's curt answer to her brother’s blasè question.

"No."

She can't tell from the tone or Zuko's face whether that's a definitive no or a 'not yet' no. There's no comfort in either.

___

The prison is dark and damp and cool and not somewhere you keep a waterbender. It's nothing like the dry horror Hama had described.

Of course water isn't really her issue right now, chained to the floor like an animal and chi points struck like clockwork to keep her subdued. She wonders faintly whether too many hits could permanently damage her bending. 

She tries not to focus on it too much, with moderate success. It hovers around her 4th concern, after (order varying with her mood) the very real worry about her possible imminent execution; fighting between disbelief and grief over her family and friends; and of course, an abundance of stress over Zuko —both his current well being and, also, his possible imminent execution. At the very least he seems to be locked away in the same prison as her. The pained groans that floated down the hallway the first few days were a familiar tenor, a silver lining and horror show neatly wrapped together.

After a week, a mean looking woman cuts her hair. Cuts is a generous term-- the woman gathers it in a bunch and roughly slashes a knife through it. It barely reaches her chin and the beads from her hair loopies fall and clink on the floor. The sound is thunderous and she watches in outrage as the old broad crushes them beneath her heels.

She lunges for her, not caring about the knife or the fact that her bending is gone. She should have cared more about the chains-- they pull taut and she falls face first.

"So uncivilized," the brutal hairdresser spits, closing the cell as she hurries out.

She can't help the pained howl that claws its way out, breaking the dogged self imposed silence she'd adopted since they thrown her into the dark. Somewhere, down the hall, a cell door rattles and a voice that sounds like comfort yells indistinguishably. She rolls onto her side, blood gushing from her nose. She thinks it may be broken. The blood is staining the floor and her clothes and if she could just _bend_. 

Without her healing, her only option is old fashioned.

The _crack_ her nose makes as she shoves it back into place makes her want to vomit or pass out or maybe both and she lets out another pained shout.

More rattling, somewhere to her right, faint but there. The indistinct voice begins to coalesce into something resembling sentences, one clearer than others:

"Leave her alone!"

___

Azula puts him in Uncle's cell because of course she does. He almost taunts her- Uncle had escaped after all but Zuko still doesn't know _how_ and he hasn't quite cracked why she's chosen this particular psychological torture.

He wishes, not for the first time since it happened, that the lightning had done it's job. 

Uncle would quietly chastise him for the thought. Katara wouldn’t be so subtle and the thought of her anger— the quick, familiar kind she’d directed at everyone in the group at least once— is enough to push the wish to the recesses of his mind. 

His entire body aches and it only takes a few days for fever to set in. He hasn't looked at his bandages, afraid of what's underneath. His sister hasn't sent anyone either, except for Ty Lee to poke and prod at him, as if he was capable of moving much anyway.

He ignores the acrobat's presence for over a week, finally snapping halfway through the second as she hovers over him with puppy dog eyes and jabs him repeatedly to perpetuate his miserable emptiness. Fire is the sole element benders create from within, as much a part of them as the blood in their veins and air in their lungs, and his blocked chi makes him feel hollow and cold inside.

"How's my aura now?" he snarls, sweating through his infection.

"I'm so sorry Zuko!" she whimpers, hitting softly at a spot on his neck.

"No you're not, you're Azula's little pet. Always have been," he spits. He's being cruel, delivering for blows to distract from his own pain. It’s not working particularly well.

Ty Lee bursts into tears and he frowns deeper, turning his back toward her. The effort causes pain to shoot through his abdomen from hip to collarbone. He gasps shakily.

"I'm sorry Zuko!" she sobs, "Azula says if I don't then Mai will, Mai—" she chokes, breaking down again. Zuko glances over his shoulder, absorbing the girl for the first time. Her clothes are pink, but dirty and worn and her hair is greasy. Surely not someone living in the lap of luxury.

A feeling like remorse pokes at his conscious but his pain and anger is still to hot for it to break through. He turns resolutely toward the wall. Ty Lee sobs harder.

“It’s your fault! She’s in prison because of you!” The accusation stings when it lands and he can hear the pain in Ty Lee’s voice. She’s not just offended on Mai’s behalf, she’s offended on her own and truthfully, Zuko had always wondered...

“You thought you had the moral high ground when you left but it just made everything worse! Did you ever think of that?! Did you think of anyone besides yourself?”

Ty Lee’s voice cracks at the end of her pitchy wail, undercutting her anger. He had thought about it of course, he’d done what he thought was best for Mai. He left because he could only save the people he cared about, and his country, if he first saved the world.

That had been the idea anyway.

“And we’re all in the same place now!”

He wants to point out that no, they aren’t. Anger pushes out the pity again. Because she is collaborating with his sister, whatever her motivation, and he is powerless behind bars, rendered useless by her narrow fingers.

“You really think Azula is going to uphold her end of the deal?” He asks. Because he’d already felt guilt over Mai. He’d began mourning her the moment they left Boiling Rock. He’s not so naive to believe for second that Azula would such a betrayal go unpunished, no matter what she says. There would be consequences. 

(Ironic, given Azula’s own unfamiliarity with them.)

The cell creaks behind him as he parses his reasoning and when he turns around, Ty Lee is gone without an answer.

___

She wakes one morning and the world around her feels a little brighter. She can feel the moisture in the air; her blood sings for the leftover tin of water from the previous day; the steady droplets falling a hands width from the right edge of her cell, in the same direction Zuko must be, sound musical.

She ignores the loud grumbling of her stomach, reaching out with a hand and lets the cool encasement of water wash over her. It's the most peace she's felt since their last days on Ember Island, before Aang disappeared. The sun in its golden hour low on the horizon, warming her and Suki's backs as they floated in the ocean, watching Aang and Toph face off in a sandcastle competition while Sokka and Zuko argued lightly over the best way cook komodo chicken— over open flame (Zuko) or buried in hot coals (Sokka).

The moment is cut short by flying stone hands pinning her own to the floor.

“You didn’t seriously think I’d surround you with water without conditions now did you?”

Azula melts from the shadows. She’s resplendent in the Fire Lord’s robes; the five pronged crown gleams in her hair. The mania is gone from her eyes— or at least, replaced with the usual sharp cunning Katara associates with her. A Dai Li agent haunts Azula’s shadow, keeping a careful eye on Katara the way one does a feral animal. Maybe the hairdresser had been spending rumors.

Katara keeps her chin up, despite the mockery of prostration the earth cuffs have forced her into. Azula doesn’t pay much mind to her regardless, happy to continue her impromptu soliloquy.

“And poor Ty Lee deserves a break wouldn’t you agree? Between you and my brother that’s a lot of time spent here and yes, she deserves the penance for her transgressions but I wouldn’t wish my brother on my worst enemy,” she says with a bored wave of her hand. Azula looks down at Katara as if this were a friendly chat, the same bored detachment Zuko had spoken her with in his bedroom. Was the ability to be so blase in stressful situations a royalty thing? “C’mon tell me, how many diatribes on his honor did your little group endure?”

Katara stares resolutely beyond the other girl. 

Azula tsks, as if her silence were an answer to a question that hadn’t been asked. “Anyway, as I was saying Ty Lee simply doesn’t have the time so yes, no more chi blocking. We won’t even chain to the walls, though obviously the door has to stay locked. You can do whatever you please within these walls. That is of course, except bending,” the girl says with satisfied smirk, pleased at the punchline to her own joke.

“Or what?” Katara snaps, quickly getting sick of beating around the bush. “You’ll kill me?”

Azula laughs, high pitched and contrived. “Is that what you’re hoping? To go meet the rest of your band of heroes?”

The words ‘heroes’ lands heavy, lathered in sarcasm.

It’s bait, she reminds herself. Her conscience sounds like Zuko’s voice and that would be hysterical in its own right if she weren’t trying to hold it together. She breathes deeply and listens to him, clamping her mouth painfully shut.

"If you try to so much as move a puddle, much less escape, it won't be you who pays the consequences," Azula says, leaning until her face is nearly touching the bars of the cell. Katara's lip twitches and she leans in toward Azula as far as her wrists will allow.

"If you try to bend," Azula repeats, noting the fury in her narrowed eyes, "I will kill him. And if he so much as lights a match, I will kill you. So for his sake, I hope you're half as honorable as he claims to be. His only ally betraying him— that'd might break Zuzu irreparably. Even more than anything I could do."

_Katara_ the voice warns— Zuko warns. _Hypocrite,_ she thinks. Perhaps anyone else would have been better as the voice of her conscience. She bites.

"You don't know anything about honor! You're a coward!"

"Is that so?" Azula asks, a wide smile full of teeth spreading across her face.

"You know I won Azula," Katara says, spitting the girl's given name. The Dai Li agent starts at the lack of honorific, stopped by a delicate raised hand. "Me and my 'peasant bending' beat you. Face me, a rematch- an Agni Kai and I'll beat you again," Katara promises, voice steeled and low.

Azula laughs, the high pitched mockery that grates her nerves and backs away, waving off her earthbender with another flick of her wrist. 

"You're hilarious, peasant," she says, voice lingering in the dark hallway. Katara scrambles to the cell door, rattling the bars.

"Coward!" she yells into the emptiness. "You're a coward! I challenge you to a rematch!"

"Katara! Stop!" her conscience yells back, voice echoing through the corridor. She ignores it.

"Fight me, Azula!"

___

The Pai Sho board, Uncle had always said, was a world of opportunity. Each move has with a multitude of possible responses. Just because your first move fails, you’re not out of the game so long as you allow yourself contingencies to your plan of play.

Of course, as the game progresses your possible winning moves decrease. You have increasingly limited options.

Now that he’s had entirely too much time to think on it, Zuko comes to the conclusion that contingencies were never their problem. 

It was thinking they were at the beginning of a game when they were at the end.

(He never was good at pai sho. And Azula, for all she hated it and Uncle, was excellent.)

So, Azula had known it was the end, and perhaps had more confidence in her father than they had had in Aang. She'd feinted her loss, Zuko was convinced, for the greater comeback. He should've seen through it— he _had_ seen through it— he should have forced Katara to take Appa and run.

He wonders if Father had approved her current psychological experiment. He certainly didn't concoct it— their Father wasn't much for subtly. Azula meanwhile has always liked to play with her food. 

"... I'll kill her," Azula promises the day his chest warms again with his internal flame. He doesn't doubt it. He’s stunned he’s still breathing. "I know you betrayed your country and family and all, but I'm still betting you won't betray her. Not after all the effort you've made to keep your little girlfriend alive," his sister goads him, voice soft enough not to carry. He ignores her. Katara isn't his girlfriend but that's not the point. Azula obviously can’t process caring about someone who doesn’t serve a purpose for her— woe become the person who tries to enter a romantic relationship with her, if even love must be transactional.

She flicks small stone at the back of his head, annoyed that he doesn't turn to face her.

"Okay," he responds placidly, knowing it will infuriate her. Azula is clearly looking for the same anger she'd provoked from Katara. The echoes of her foolish challenge had echoed through the hallway and for a frightening moment, he'd worried that his sister would take her up on it. 

But sometimes Azula seems to forget they'd grown up together, that he knew the reactions she craved. Sure, he hasn't always been the best at controlling his own reactions but he's a different person than even the one who'd come crawling back to the capital not so long ago.

"Okay?" she repeats incredulous. 

He breathes deeply, wrists resting on his knees, thumbs touching the tips of his other fingers. His torso still feels stiff but when the infection had burned through he'd finally been able to coax his broken body in the lotus position Aang had taught him on their way home from the Sun Warrior's temple.

_"It was Monk Gyatso's favorite but I don't see why it wouldn't work for firebenders too! It just makes you feel all—" Aang had paused, giving a full body wiggle ending with the joyful bopping of his head and a satisfied smile. His enthusiasm had made Zuko laugh._

He pushes his chest out, allowing warmth to flood through him. He can hear Azula tapping her foot impatiently.

"You won't believe my denials anyway so I don't know what else you want me to say, Azula."

His sister huffs, "You could be a little more grateful for my gift."

"You're right, thank you sister dearest for threatening my friend's life rather than my own."

He spares a glance over his shoulder, watching Azula's lips purse in displeasure. She rolls her eyes and snaps at her guard to follow her away.

He smiles to himself, relaxing his hands and opening his palms to receive the last of the streams of sunlight that manage to break through the narrow grate in the space above his cell.

He's still imprisoned, still defeated but feels lighter despite everything. Then again, it's easy to make any loss feel like a win when you decide to not care about the game anymore.

___

She'd vacillated between anger and fear from the moment she'd been tossed in her cell, buffeted between waves of emotion. Occasionally grief would pull her below the surface but never for long— a waterbender cannot drown.

But after Azula's threat the pressing fear abates and the anger turns down to a simmer.

Which would be good except it leaves her feeling adrift. Listless. Surrounded by water she cannot drink, supported by the sea but constantly punished by the sun, unknown dangers lurking in the dark below.

Boredom had turned her into quite the poet. Sokka would love that.

She tries to talk to Zuko once, shouting into the darkness and hearing his faint reply, a tinny echo in the emptiness. She imagines the sound moving down the corridor like the small birds that perched on the roofs in Ba Sing Se, flitting nimbly from perch to perch so quickly they looked like they were bouncing. It was like watching Aang walk, feet barely on the ground. 

(They may be annoying, but Toph's nicknames were always based in truths)

Zuko's response is raw and crackling and cut off immediately by the clanging of batons against metal, a yelp, and gruff voices shouting and swearing to ‘shut yer trap or I'll give you another one to match’. When the ruddy guard comes to her cell, baton in hand, she's feigning sleep in the far corner. The guard is undeterred, rattling the door as he enters the cell, planting his baton swiftly between her ribs.

She bites her tongue to quash the grunt of pain, refusing to give him the satisfaction. With a parting lash across her shoulder, he leaves.

She counts the footsteps until they disappear before letting out the hiss of pain she'd been holding back.

She rolls onto her back, trying to get an glimpse of moonlight through the cracks in the ceiling of her cell. During the day, she can make out the sun's shine. But at night, when she most desperately needs Yue's strength, there's no glow.

Even though she expects it (it’s been weeks, maybe months since she’s received Tui’s light) it stills feels like a loss. One of many, another to add to the list. 

A catalog of mourning.

Her mother. Her father. Sokka. Aang. Toph. Suki. Everyone who'd helped them along the way, lost to the Fire Nation.

A nation so cruel they cannibalize their own, she reminds herself, adding General Iroh to the list. And Zuko's mother, for good measure. She thinks he'd appreciate that. If she ever gets to speak to him again she'll double check, just to be safe.

It feels clinical at this point, running through the names. She's yet to cry, not once since everything went belly up, and she wonders if she even can now. Maybe there are losses so great they can't be comprehended. Still, she solemnly encourages the blessings of Tui and La on all of them, whether they're Water Tribe or not because everyone deserves to have someone looking out for them in the Spirit World. 

She hopes they appreciate the thought anyway.

___

_It happens like this:  
_ _The Fire Lord makes a psychological power play.  
_ _(The consequence of which she won't realize until years later, slowly festering until it backfires)  
_ _And buried under the bedrock of the Fire Nation, a boy and girl become each other's salvation._

___

"I'm feeling nostalgic today, peasant, aren't you?"

_No,_ she thinks. _Not particularly._

Katara guesses it's been six months. She's tried to keep count but time on her emotional raft is as slippery as the mush they feed her. It must be the rainy season though, because the temperature has dropped significantly and her increasingly raggedy Water Tribe clothes were wildly insufficient at keeping the chill away. She thinks it's ironic, to be adorned in her people's clothes but freezing. But she refused the red prison garb on principle and doesn't plan on backing down now. The guards couldn't be bothered to fight her on it.

Azula has only visited twice, the first time to threaten them both, the second to brag to Zuko about imprisoning an infant, loudly and pointedly. But today Katara is the one with the misfortune to win an audience with the Fire Lord.

“Here for that rematch?” Katara asks, rising languidly to turn and meet the Azula's eyes. If she’s not supposed to bend her element, no such restrictions were placed on embodying it.

Azula snorts, not even dignifying her with a full laugh and Katara scowls, crossing her arms across her body.

"Then what do you want?" she snaps, "I was enjoying the monotony better than your company."

"Aren't you clever?" Azula drawls. "You could be nicer to me you know, I brought you a gift."

Katara grunts as she goes lurching to the wall, rough earth cuffs pining her there as the door to the cell clanks open and a guard deposits a sack of a human at her feet.

"Zuko." Katara breathes. His hair is matted to his face and he looks, improbably, paler with shiny bruises of varying color across his knuckles and a fresh one high on his cheekbone. A shiny burn in the unmistakble shape of a hand wraps around his bicep. The prison garb hangs loosely on his frame and he looks as rough as she feels. 

Azula catches her gaze and smirks as the cell door slams shut and Katara stumbles when her wrists are freed. 

"Now don't forget our deal," she cautions as Katara gently rolls Zuko onto his back, assessing his injuries.

"What did you do to him?" she demands, anger spiking while feeling for a pulse. Azula rolls her eyes.

"Honestly, you're being dramatic. It's Ty Lee's handiwork," she says. Outrage boils but Azula cuts her off before she can voice it. "For transport purposes only, it's much more efficient don't be prissy."

Katara very much doubts that but bites her tongue, settling for steely glare at the other girl.

Azula holds her gaze unflinching before clapping her hands together loudly.

"Well, you two kids have fun! I'll see you," she pauses, laughing lightly at her own joke even before she makes it, "At some point."

Katara waits until she disappears from sight in a sweep of black fabric and sits back against the cool stone of her cell, dragging Zuko's limp body with far too much ease. He's far thinner than any boy of seventeen should be. Resting his head against her leg, she covers him with the thin membrane of fabric that passes for a blanket. She gently brushes his hair from his face and sets her head back against the wall.

She tries to rest, screwing her eyes shut as if she can force sleep though sheer determination. But she can't shake the montage of terror behind her eyelids. Zuko writhing, body crackling with electricity, just out of reach. Azula’s crazed flame-filled cries. The ham-fisted guard yanking her from bed. Zuko, on his knees, bandages bloody.

She shudders. Her eyes ache but the memories are worse than the exhaustion.

So she sits vigil over him. She'd let her guard down once before and he'd been taken from her. This time she won’t let him out of her reach until he wakes.

___

When he comes back into consciousness he notices the warmth against his face and the dull ache in his chest. 

He stiffens when he realizes the warmth is a person, slowly cracking his eyes open.

Katara comes into focus and she looks—terrible.

She's drawn, curly hair short and knotted around her face. Her lips are cracked and deep circles line her eyes, though based on the vigilance with which she's watching the door of the cell he wonders if that could at least be partially remedied.

She startles slightly when she looks down and realizes he's awake. She lifts his head gently, helping him to a sitting position and it's deja vu— him flat on his back in the courtyard, opening his eyes to see blue ones staring back at him with deep concern.

She settles him against the wall with the same gentleness she'd helped him into bed with months before and immediately scoots further away. He can't help the disappointment; not for lack of warmth— he can create his own heat— but for the first compassionate touch in months. Maybe it's just another positive of his defection turned negative in prison— after a formal, unaffectionate upbringing, once you get used to the effusive group hugs and the easy familiarity of their interactions, it's hard to be devoid of it.

"Are you okay?" Katara asks. She's watching him with an intensity that could only be described as studying. He nods.

"I'm okay," he says, flexing his bruised hands. Katara raises an eyebrow, tilting her head in their direction. He folds his hands under the hem of his shirt, hiding them from view. "I uh, punched a wall?" he admits sheepishly.

"Couldn't you have chose something less violent? It's not like Azula needs help hurting you," she scolds.

_"I found the new Avatar," Azula drawled, seated on the palaquin chair outside his cell. Ty Lee was perched on the arm of it, eyes flitting between Zuko and the hallway nervously._

_He was sitting in the same position as her last visit, legs crossed and palms open. He hadn't offered so much as a hello but Azula had never needed an invitation._

_"It was the only infant in the whole South. I though those heathens had broods," she said. Zuko fought to keep his face neutral, but closed the fists resting on his knees. Ty Lee shot him a sympathetic smile he ignored. "It's lucky though, her life will be much better now."_

_"You think she won't realize she's not Fire Nation?" he asked, voice not quite level. He tried to imagine the new Avatar and can only think of a little girl who looks like Katara, blue eyed and behind bars._

_Azula shrugged, "She'll be raised as royalty." Another proposal of his sister, not his father no doubt. But a gilded cage is still a cage._

_"And when she questions her role as Avatar? Or wants to meet more of her people?"_

_"Father will offer her a choice."_

_Zuko scoffed. Father never offered choices, only decisions._

_"Besides, she can always come see another peasant right here. An example, you could say."_

"I was.... frustrated" he says, forcing a small smile. He had been furious actually, at the idea of premeditated horror for a _child_. He was used to blowing off steam literally, smoke pouring from his nostrils or flame on his breath. But he’s certain Azula would count such indiscretions as bending, no matter if they were involuntary. So he could either meditate or find another outlet and sometimes meditation won’t cut it.

Katara doesn’t need to know that though, much less that the Fire Nation had stolen yet another Southern water bender from her home.

She accepts his explanation with a roll of her eyes and the exasperated expression that had been mostly Sokka’s purview.

"Boys..." she mumbles, drawing her knees to her chest and crossing her arms around them.

"Did Azula come here?" he asks. He blacked out shortly after his sister's most recent appearance, apparently lacking the time or desire for her usual chatter. But the way Katara had said her name was with the bitterness of a recent interaction.

"She was here when they ah, dropped you off--"

"How generous of her."

"Said she was feeling nostalgic," she spits, the word laced with meaning.

 _Ah,_ he thinks, the green glow of earthen caverns replacing the blue eyes against a comet-streaked sky. It'd be a hell of ploy, after being battered and bruised, not to mention striving for her hard won friendship. But if there's anything his sister is skilled at it's planting doubt in barren soil. Zuko reaches across the space between them, resting a hand gently on her ankle. It's awkward but he shakes that aside, meeting her eyes.

"I swear to you I won't betray you. On Uncle's li-- On Uncle's soul," he promises solemnly. "No one left behind right?" he asks, echoing her resolve from the day of the comet.

She unfurls, just barely, knees still drawn but drops a hand to meet his and squeezes his gently.

"No one left behind," she agrees. She frowns, eyebrows knit together and then in a hurried breath "I'm sorry you were right we should've run."

"It might have not made a difference anyway."

"We'll never know thanks to me."

"Katara, stop. You were looking out for me, which is more than I can say for most other people."

"But—"

"Stop. Seriously. If you're going to follow that faulty logic I should've never brought you here in the first place."

 _You would've died with everyone else,_ he thinks. He wonders if that would've been kinder.

"I—" she starts, guilt still wresting her face. She sighs heavily, shoulders dropping. "Okay," she says. Then again, more firmly, "Okay."

She sets her shoulders back a bit and looks him over again, the same studious concern as earlier.

"So, the hands are your own fault. But how's the burn?"

"Crusty."

Her noise wrinkles in disgust and she makes a gagging noise in lieu of a coherent sentence. Healing ability she may have, but bedside manner? Not so much.

"It's fine, it's what burns do," he lies. "It would have been worse if you hadn't worked your magic," he adds truthfully, to balance it out. He waves toward his face, "I wish you had been around years ago."

Her response is immediate. "You wouldn't have let me near you."

The sentence is short but the tone is light, teasing even. He still winces. 

"Thankfully for both of us I've grown up."

"You just let out the person you always were inside. Your Uncle always knew."

___

"How long have we been here?" she asks one morning, interrupting his meditation. He drops his hands, knowing whatever serenity he had is about to be washed away. He peers over his shoulder.

She took over the sleeping mat when he woke first, which was most mornings. They shared it as a pillow during the night, whatever good that did them. Their guard had laughed at him when he tried to convince him to bring them the one from his old cell.  
But even though the floor was hard, the mat filthy and the situation dire sometimes in his dreams he could almost imagine sleeping next to her all those months ago, curled in Appa's soft fur. All that was missing was Toph aggressively burrowing into his back, tucking her freezing feet under his legs in the middle of the night and insisting "shh, heater" when he tried to object.

"Earth to Zuko!"

Katara was snapping in his general direction and he rotated sheepishly to face her. She didn't ask him what he was thinking of, clearly lost in thought somewhere happier than the cell they shared. It was an unspoken agreement between them, a way to keep a modicum their sanity and their privacy in the situation where both were running low.

"I asked, how long have we been here?" Katara repeats, enunciating each word for him. He chucks a small pebble in her direction, leftover from the earth cuffs the Dai Li like to use, that she dodges neatly, popping back up like one of those punching dummies Lieutenant Ji set up in the unused brig of their ship.

"Here together? Or since the comet?"

"The comet," she says carefully, almost surprised by the two options.

"Eight months, ten days and some odd hours."

Now surprise is definitely visible on her face. "Time starts to get pretty meaningless after years on a boat. It became a habit," he explains, moving so he can point to the corner of the eastern wall where he'd resumed his count after he came to in her lap. He's marked a new day each time he meditates.

Disappointment creases her brow, clearly prompted by something beyond his secretarial skills. He keeps his expression neutral, but open. Available, but not asking.

A long silence passes before she breaks it again.

"My birthday was last month," she offers bitterly. "Sixteen is a big deal in the South. It's like," she waves her hands searching for a word, "you're officially an adult I guess. I mean most of us already would be helping the grown-ups with tasks and chores and hunts even but it's this big official ceremony, with the whole tribe."

Zuko nods. In the Fire Nation all islands used to have different traditions but now it's nearly universally seventeen, the age of conscription. Except for the Royal Family of course— any Crown Prince or Princess is supposed to have a coming of age ceremony when they turn 10, to help solidify their authority should they become Fire Lord early. When Lu Ten died, he should've had his own. But his father kept pushing it back, claiming he was too young.

Now he realizes his father just never wanted him as an heir. He wonders if Azula ever had hers.

"How would you have celebrated?" he asks. No need to mull over every reason his father hates him.

"We grow our hair long," she says, self consciously touching her short strands and Zuko thinks of how it used to fly behind her while she fought. Had she hoped she'd be back in the South Pole well before her birthday? Now it seems like a naive hope, but who was he to judge? He’d personally sought to destroy the world for an even more far fetched hope. 

Katara's voice is soft as she continues talking, imagining a day that will never come. "Gran Gran would brush out my hair 100 times and then all the women would help plait it, strand by strand, one at a time, with the Elders' blessing. It's meant to be a show of acceptance into the tribe." Katara pauses, grinning broadly. "But more importantly there'd be a big party after."

All in all it sounds far better than the ceremony he never got, sitting still and quiet for hours with Fire Sages blessing and praying over him as the embodiment of Agni himself.  
"You're still a member of the tribe, even without the fanfare," he says, trying to fill the silence. Katara shoots him an amused look.

"Of course I am," she says. He may have well as called the sky blue. "I always will be."

___

She knows Azula has ulterior motives, unceremoniously throwing her and Zuko back together. But if she ignores that inconvenient fact she can almost say she's happy.

Almost.

She's still caged, the guards are still casually cruel, her world is still in ashes at her feet, and even without all that she's never been someone who forgives and forgets easily.

But now she has Zuko— a physical reality instead of the dim voice in the distance from the first portion of her stay. 

_Can't leave you behind if you don't leave my sight._

He's a good companion, comfortable in long stretches of silence and even a decent conversationalist when it’s a topic he cares for (an important caveat, though he'll bravely bumble through areas outside his expertise. It's endearing.)

She's tried to imagine being locked up with anyone else, and Suki is the only other one she thinks she could deal with without losing her mind.

(Toph? Six hours, tops. Sokka, in a confined space? A day. Aang? Spirits save him, but maybe a month at most.)

They settle into a routine the same way they did on Ember Island. It'd almost be domestic, except for the whole prison thing. 

_“If you guys are done playing house we’re waiting to start!”_

_“Honestly I don’t know how you guys survived before we got here,” Zuko said exasperated, gesturing between Suki and himself as he set down food._

_“We had Katara!” Sokka said automatically, trailing off as he caught sight of his girlfriend's expression._

_“She’s your sister not your maid,” Suki chided, offering Katara a smile and a warm slice of bread._

_“No,” Toph agreed. “Maids don’t have a temper like sugar queen.”_

_Katara sacrificed a piece of bread to chuck at the younger girl’s head._

_“Katara’s like glue!” Aang said, smiling brightly, looking at her reverentially the way she both loved and feared. “She holds us all together!”_

There’s not much left for Katara to hold together; her and Zuko are less glue than gravity, held together by pressure. But it works, like the great stone mansions in the Earth Kingdom built without clay or concrete yet solid and unyielding. 

He wakes early and she sleeps in. She stays up late and he falls asleep early. They take their two meals together and he doesn't argue when she claims fullness and forces her extras on him. 

(And when he does the same some times, she pretends not to notice, eating her additional portions without comment).

What they don’t do is fight. They _can’t_ fight, they realize the first time frustration rises and they sulk in their corners until the stupid argument subsides. It’s too big a risk for frost to crawl along the metal bars or the torches to flare angrily. Fire and water are volatile elements in the best of circumstances and her and Zuko are temperamental people. Two sides of the same emotional coin, according to Toph.

Instead they relive happier moments in the comfort of darkness and ignore the recent past. She teaches him how to braid, Water Tribe style, and soon enough her short hair is plaited as elaborately as his. He teaches her silly games his crew used to play on his ship to pass the time ("I was too grumpy to join in") and after extensive coaxing, the lyrics to one Fire Nation sailing song. 

Zuko, it turns out, has a more than decent singing voice. She can only imagine what Sokka would do with this information.

It reignites an ember of hope she thought had long gone out. It's not hope for a specific future, the one they’d nursed as Appa flew them to the capital, but the universal kind, the kind simply meant to keep you alive.

The dangerous, foolish kind.

___

"Mediate with me."

Katara cracks an eye open to look at him unhappily. She rolls over with a groan.

"No."

"Why not?"

"If Aang couldn't convince me you're not about to."

"Do the Water Tribes not believe in connecting with the spirit world?"

"Our spirits aren't even of the spirit world— they chose remain with us on this earth."

"Not the most forward looking spirits—"

"Well no one factored in a genocidal regime," she interrupts flatly.

He winces, chagrined. 

"Fair point."

"Plus," she says, lowering her voice into a deep mockery of his own. "I don't rise with the sun." He sighs, pushing himself to his feet.

"Am I going to live that down?"

"Not as long as I live.”

___

It's raining and when it rains, their cell leaks. And when that happens, Zuko gets even grumpier than normal.

"Maybe this is karma, for everything I've done wrong," he mutters, angrily watching the steady drip from his corner. She can only assume he's talk about an existential 'this' and not the rain.

"Seems silly that karma would punish you for the right decision," Katara says, doodling with the water pooling by the door. The symbols of the four nations evolves into more familiar patterns— the Kyoshi Warriors makeup, her brother's warpaint, the designs Gran Gran sews onto her parka.

Zuko doesn't say anything and Katara looks up, washing away her drawings with her hand— flat against the stone, not gently flicking above it.

"You're seriously whining about the rain?!"

Zuko crosses his arms, scowling, and the phrase _'angry ponytail prince'_ comes to mind.

“Maybe I just don’t want to get sick!” he claims defensively. Katara rolls her eyes, laying down in her puddle to prove her point. The water slowly seeping into her clothes is almost as good as bending (not really, but she's learned sometimes it's kinder to lie to herself)

“It’s warm out, Zuko. The _water_ is warm, see?" she says, patting the ground next to her. "A cold is not even near the top of things you should worry about.”

Zuko just grumbles and pulls their blanket more tightly around him.

___

Katara is wrong about the cold. Though admittedly, he is a terrible patient.

“You got fried from the inside out and weren’t this difficult!”

“Injuries are different than illness”

“I agree but that doesn’t mean you have to be a baby about it”

“My birthday, my rules,” Zuko says, repressing a violent shiver. 

"Some birthday," she huffs. She rolls over, clinging to him like a koala-monkey, face buried in his back and arms tight around his chest. He relaxes fractionally. "Tui and La you're even more of a sauna than normal."

“I didn’t ask for your help.”

“Tough. I wasn’t going to let you be completely miserable all night. Just be happy I’m not making you suck on frogs,” she snaps back, making a disgusted noise at the memory. It's crazy for him to think if he hadn't been in a pissing match with Zhao, he never would've freed Aang and Aang never would've found those damn frogs. 

Of course in that scenario, Zhao would've claimed credit for capturing the Avatar and he'd probably still be exiled at sea with Uncle, angry and alone as ever. Even sick as a dog, imprisoned by his own family, he can't imagine that alternative would be better than reality.

“Katara?”

“Mmm?”

“Thank you.”

“It's what friends do, Zuko.

___

"I didn't almost kill him!” She exclaims through a mouthful of gruel. “Sokka was exaggerating."

"I don't know, he said you nearly sliced his head open with ice disks. And no offense but it's not so hard to believe."

"You think I'm that blood thirsty?"

"No but I've had the misfortune of fighting you before. I think you're stronger than you realize."

She hums, satisfied by the explanation as she finishes the hardtack.

"What would you start with?"

“What?”

“If you had the misfortune to fight me again.”

"In an actual fight? Not a spar? Fire whips probably, for versatility. Get in a solid leg sweep."

_And then I would get on my hands and knees and beg for your mercy._

"That's easily deflected by an ice wall. And water whips are nimbler."

"In your opinion."

"In my knowledge,” she corrects haughtily. “Plus I could easily ice the floor, you lose your balance, I take the opportunity to toss some daggers in your direction."

"If there's anything I'm good at it's defense."

"And stealing my techniques."

"Technically, Uncle borrowed waterbending techniques. And then he taught them to me,” he teases. “Plus your whole counterattack assumes there's plenty of water. Firebending is better that way."

"There's _always_ water, if you know where to look,” she says, meeting his gaze steadily. Not a threat but a reminder. 

___

Impossibly, she’s drowning. The water is fighting her, dragging her down, not obeying her commands, tossing her in the current farther and farther from the body floating lifeless near the surface...

“Katara! Katara! Wake up,” a voice hisses through the water.

She gasps, thrashing as she wakes with a scream caught in her throat. Bony hands grasp her shoulders and when she blinks, Zuko’s eyes are the only light that break through the darkness.

“You were yelling again, the guards were getting annoyed, I didn’t want a repeat of last time,” he whispers.

The last time, when the sharp faced crow of a woman who work the evening shift planted her baton across her jaw so hard her entire face looked as though it molting, a sickly yellow green for weeks. Zuko could barely look at her, somehow guilty, as if her nightmares were his fault.

(on the contrary, he's the only good thing left in her life)

“No, you were right. Thank you,” she says hoarsely.

“Was it Aang again? Do you want to talk about it?” he asks softly, head propped on his bent arm, his other hand still gentle on her shoulder.

“No, not really.”

Zuko nods in understanding, rolling over to give her space.

She lays flat on her back, arms crossed protectively across her chest. At the beginning she avoided nightmares by avoiding sleep until her body was so exhausted it couldn’t muster the energy to dream. Now, she was lulled by Zuko’s steady breathing each night, a weakness and her fortitude all at once.

“Zuko?” She breathes into the darkness, expecting silence.

“Yeah?” is the exhausted response.

“Can I...?”

Her voice feels small and shaky. If Zuko is surprised by her change of heart, he keeps it to himself, simply shifting to open his arms.

"You're okay," he promises sleepily. It's a lie, but she lets herself believe it anyway, wrapping her arms tightly around his own and letting her heart slow until unconsciousness claims victory.

___

They get three meals instead of two, filled with real komodo chicken and rice instead of porridge. There's even the smallest glasses of plum wine.

"The Phoenix King wishes you a happy victory day," the guard says with a toothy smile. The calendar carved into the cell's corner stares at him mockingly.

One year to the day of his defeat. And his father's _triumph._

The trays accumulate throughout the day, each brought boastful guard. Zuko and Katara sit against the far wall, eyeing them angrily. Eating the rich food seems like admitting defeat all over again to a battle they already lost.

But on the other hand, they both could really use the meals.

"Sokka would say food is food," he says after the last meals are deposited. 

"It's meat though, Aang never ate meat. We could be just honoring him right?" she asks, doubt coloring the question. Her stomach rumbles, as if rejecting her point. His own joins in chorus.

In the end, hunger beats out pride. They eat until they're uncomfortable in silence, sitting back to back as if avoiding one another could hide their collective shame.

"They wouldn't want us to starve," Katara ventures later. He eyes the empty trays stacked by the metal bars. "They'd want us to live."

___

"Would you have killed her? If you hadn't been injured?"

She asks it in the darkness, tips of her fingers resting against his arm. He rest his own hand a hair's breadth from her wrist. Barely touching but close enough for comfort.

"I don't know," he breathes. His memories of the day are all wrapped in white hot terror. He has trouble parsing rational thought from the instinct the propelled him through the fight. _Why didn't you?_ he wants to ask in return.

"Would you now, knowing everything?"

"I-- I don't know."

___

It’s oppressively humid.

She hasn't been able to sleep since Zuko woke, even after moving onto the abject comfort of the mat. Breathing alone is enough to cause rivulets of sweat to pour down her temple.

Zuko is meditating and Katara is secretly pleased they're restricted from bending. The last thing they need in the cell right now is an open flame. 

It's still early but the sun has risen high enough to cascade through the crack in the ceiling, illuminating Zuko by the cell door. She can make out the knobs of his spine on his bare back. They'd both discarded their sweat soaked tunics the day before, the heat making her desperate enough to sleep solely in her wrappings, even if that meant enduring the vulgar jeering of the night guards and the Zuko's indignation on her behalf.

Sighing she drags herself from the mat.

“Can I meditate with you?”

Zuko's raises his eyebrows but pats the space next to him that she sinks into. He offers her a light smile, the first from either of them since the anniversary of the comet. Her meditation motivation is mostly to try and ignore the sticky heat but Zuko's smile is an added bonus.

She mimics his position, tucking her legs under one another. She closes her eyes and breathes deep and slow they way she's watched Zuko do and places her wrists on her knees.

He snorts, lightly but teasing and she opens one eye to glare.

He adjusts her hands, narrow fingers light on her pulse point as he coaxes them to flatten and she shivers. She's not sure if she imagines how the tips of his ears redden but he persists in his adjustments. Her neck raised, palms flat and shoulders back. It feels like supplication, which might be the point but the vulnerability throws her off all the same. She tries for his sake.

"Now," Zuko says, settling back in next to her. Their knees just touch but she doesn't want to move away, despite the heat. "Now you breathe."

___

After a year in prison Zuko still holds himself regally, back straight, head level. She doesn't think he realizes he does it; it's as if his subconscious knows he was born to wear a crown, despite current circumstances. Everything about him is precise and sharp. 

At least until he moves, surprising her as he fluidly drops his shoulder and sweeps upwards with his fist, spinning lightly out of the way of her advance. 

She slides past him, dodging his counter attack. They spin past each other, arms raised defensively, and retreat to their respective sides of the cell.

What began as intellectual, strategic battles fought with words in the dark had naturally progressed to physical ones. Or as physical as they can be without bending.

Katara bends at the waist as Zuko lunges, an aborted movement adapted from fire bending. He’s light on his feet as he molds one failed offensive into another. 

She knew they complimented each other well, opposing elements make for a good partner. The moves are so seamless they could be dancing; keeping time to music only they can hear. The thought makes her giggle, disrupting the delicate balance. Zuko strikes what he expects to be air and instead barrels into her. They crash on the stone in a heap, breathing heavily. Although cathartic, their mock battles are exhausting; prison food is not meant to sustain a proper fight. 

“What could possibly be funny?” Zuko wheezes.

“Dancing,” she answers when she catches her breath, accepting his hand to pull her to her feet.

Zuko frowns at her, but there’s no heat in it.

"It's an ancient firebending technique!"

"And this one?" Katara asks, mimicking the liquid movements he used. 

Zuko crosses his arms. He's frowning but it doesn't reach his eyes. "Newer firebending techniques," he mutters. "It's still not a dance!"

___

"I asked Tui and La to watch over your mother. I meant to ask you but our friends outside didn't seem too keen on conversation," she says. "You don't think she'd mind? Being guided by Water Tribe spirits?"

Zuko smiles warmly over his make-shift pai sho tiles, crafted from scraps of her threadbare tunic. She'd torn the white tunic trim into new wrappings, fashioned blue cloth beads for her steadily growing hair, and braided the remaining fabric into matching bracelets, one for each of them. She'd finally surrendered to wearing the red prison top she'd stored under her mat for months but still clung to the blue bottoms.

"I think she'd be honored," Zuko says, routing her on the board with a final tile, his gentle smile growing to a self-satisfied smirk. She groans. This was the fourth match in a row she'd lost and Zuko was more insufferable with each successive win.

_As if you wouldn't gloat too._

"Another game?"

"It's not like there's much else to do," she quips. 

She wouldn't have denied him even if there was.

___

She shakes out her wrist, rubbing it where it had collided with Zuko's elbow. It will leave a bruise, no doubt, joining the collection on her legs. 

Zuko leans on his knees, panting slightly. Their stamina had improved with their improvised bending practice, though not by much. 

Katara doesn't give him room to catch his breath, launching herself at him and aiming for his legs. The gentle dancing of earlier sparring iterations had devolved into pure hand to hand combat. It's foolish when she can't heal but usually it only left them bruised and worn. Plus it doubled as an excellent distraction from their normal drudgery, with the added bonus of Katara saving face during pai sho.

Zuko catches her attack effortlessly. He turns her back to his chest, twisting her leading arm back with one hand and resting his other forearm against her neck, a gentle chokehold.

He's had proper training, on top of several inches on her. But Katara had grown up with Sokka, and isn't afraid to play dirty which tends to even the playing field. 

(Strategic advantage, he used to call it, sitting on her chest with his arms crossed until she gave up or mom pulled them apart, exasperated)

"Just yield, Katara," Zuko says bemused, breath warm against her ear. She suppresses a shiver, acutely aware of his proximity. She considers taking advantage of it as her first play to escape his hold but then she'll have to deal with a properly embarrassed prince for the rest of the evening and that seems taxing.

Instead she smacks her head back against his chin, hard enough to hurt but soft enough to avoid serious injury.

Zuko stumbles back, surprised. "Ow, shit, what was that for?" he asks, rubbing his jaw.

"I didn't want to yield," she says innocently, shrugging. He rolls his eyes. 

"Try it again," he challenges.

She acquiesces, launching herself at him again, this time landing a better grip around his shoulders. When he moves to break her hold, she sticks a foot behind his heel.

He loses his balance forward instead of back and she braces herself for the impact. Her hip hits the hard ground first. Zuko's hand cushions her head from splitting open on the stone floor but the rest of him lands clumsily on top of her with a grunt.

"Ow."

"Didn't you tell me Azula doesn't need help hurting us?" he asks sarcastically, carefully disentangling himself from her. He flushes spectacularly at a misplaced hand. Which, honestly, as if they don't spend every moment day and night in uncomfortable proximity.

"I miscalculated," she coughs, air rushing back into her lungs as he rolls off of her.

"This is worth two weeks of Pai Sho."

"What? No!"

"Two weeks, Katara!"

___

"So you pray to Agni?" she asks in the early hours of the morning when they shift awake to meditate.

"That's not the point of meditation, it's meant to clear your mind and balance you. Have you been paying attention to any of my guidance."

Katara rolls her eyes, dragging herself from the mat. "Tui and La are balance," she mutters, mostly to herself, moving her hand back and forth in a waterbending motion.

He sighs, taking her point. "But, yes. He's not the only spirit though."

"But he's the most important?"

"That's what the sages say. Our Fire Lords are Agni ordained, blessed to rule by his grace."

She sinks down beside him and he reaches over to gently pry open her clawed hands. He gently pokes her shoulder and she immediately draws them back, shaking her hair over her shoulders. A stubborn piece gets caught on her cheek and she shoves it behind her ear before he can finish his internal debate whether or not to gently tuck it out of the way.

She settles back into her relaxed position, overexaggerating her flattened palms. "Do you pray often?" she asks.

"Not particularly."

“Does he listen?”

“Not to me.”

___

You can't set water aflame, that's what she'd told him. But the platform is distressingly familiar and makes his scar prickle. The smell of burning flesh overwhelms him. He's never forgot the smell, or the screams, or the looming presence of a depraved man and he's as helpless to stop it now as he was then.

_Leave her alone!_ he tries to yell but his voice is hoarse and the screams have stopped which can only mean one thing.

"Shhh," she whispers, "It's okay."

The voice is close and comforting, smoothing out the rough edges of his fear and pulling him slowly from the terror. When he opens his eyes he knows it'll be blue ones staring back at him, waiting patiently until he quits hyperventilating, touch familiar as she opens her arms for him. They were past the point of bravado in the face of nightmares-- she would scream and he would shake and they both would surrender to the need for reassurance when reality punched through.

He’s mostly awake now but Katara still murmurs softly to him.

“Your name is Zuko, you’re eighteen years old and you’re Fire Nation royalty. You saved my life. We’re in prison but you’re safe okay? I got you. I need you to trust me, okay?”

His mantra, made to mirror the one he improvised for her the night she clawed his face while he shook her awake. _Your name is Katara, you’re sixteen years old, you’re the pride of the Southern Water Tribe. You saved my life. You’re a powerful waterbender but you can’t use it right now okay? I need you to trust me.”_

He squeezes Katara’s wrist gently, blinking away the last of the nightmare, letting calm wash over him in the darkness. He can see the contours of a smile in the dark shadows.

His comfort is fleeting. Torchlight casts shadows along the hallway and the drumming of boots closes in. Katara doesn’t move from his side.

"How sweet."

His sister's voice is saccharine. and Katara tightens her arms around him as Azula's pointy toed boots appear in his vision. He blinks furiously but his reality is morphing back into a nightmare he cannot wake from. Dread is heavy on his soul as the cell creaks open and Katara feels it too, shaking imperceptibly under his hands. This is different than the usual callousness of the guards or Azula’s vague threats.

They're flanked by expressionless Fire Nation soldiers, outfitted in the shiny pointed armor of the Fire Lord's person retinue and a resolute Ty Lee; It feels like the plays their mother used to take him to on Ember Island, the dragon slowly opening its maw wide to snap up the bad guys.

(except they're the good guys-- they failed but they're _good_ )

Azula smirks and snaps her fingers and everyone moves at once. 

Ty Lee strikes the space between his neck and shoulder and the vice grip he had on Katara a moment before slips away.

They don’t block her chi, but the guards manhandle her, yanking until her hold on him breaks, and drag her kicking and hollering away.

“Leave her alone!” he yells hoarsely, reaching with the only arm he still has feeling in. A guard stomps his hand, striking his temple with a baton. Stars swim in his vision.

“Zuko! Don’t touch him!”

“Leave her alone!” 

“You thrice damned bitch! Face me yourself, you coward!” 

Azula smirks silently throughout the ordeal, closing the cell with a click.

As abruptly as he was deposited before Katara months before, she’s gone. 

___

“You,” she snarls at the hairdresser, who looks nearly as unhappy to be here as Katara herself. 

She glares up at the woman, refusing to rise from where she sits hunched on the ground. The older woman raps her on the shoulder with the handle of her long knife-- a command, clearly-- but Katara just tucks her bound wrists to her chest, curling in on herself more.

"Impertinent girl," the woman says gruffly, grabbing her by the hair and yanking her upright. Katara lurches forward when the knife cuts through it, the ends now barely brushing against her jaw. She bites her tongue to keep tears from welling.

She gasps as cold water pours over her head and the Fire Nation woman wastes no time in raking a course brush against her back. The woman fists a hand through the shorn strands, pulling her by the scalp and Katara complies, if only to keep her from ripping what little hair she has left by the root.

"Filthy savage," the woman mutters, scrubbing her arms.

"It's not like you people provided hygienic lodgings," Katara mutters back. 

The hairdresser slaps her. "Traitors shouldn't live, you're lucky to get anything at all."

"How can I be a traitor to a country that's not my own?" she mumbles. This time she's ready for the slap that follows. 

The older woman pulls her to her feet, shoving a new red uniform at her. "Change. And the Fire Lord advises you remember your agreement," she says curtly, unlocking Katara's manacles. Katara snorts, as if she wouldn't have beaten this woman senseless if she hadn't remembered. _Manacles_ are not the height of security.

She drops the new uniform on the wet floor. "I like my clothes just fine."

The older woman raises an eyebrow, frowning. "Change or you're escorted to your new cell naked, it's your choice. Either way the Dai Li are waiting."

Katara thinks of guards leering at her and Zuko in the summer heat and scowls, grabbing the offending clothes.

"Any day now, heathen."

Katara undresses quickly, turning from the obstinate woman to unwind her graying wraps, carefully tucking her mother's necklace into the brilliant white bands of fabric included atop her uniform. She turns, leaving her blue pants behind her and faces the minder, chin raised. The woman raps on the door. When it opens, Katara's wrists lock back together immediately and a hood is slipped over her head.

The path they drag her down in long and circuitous, obviously meant to obscure any layout or escape routes.   
She tries to map them anyway.

___

"Oh Zuzu," Azula sing songs, predatory smile on her face. "I brought you a friend. I figured you could use a new one since the peasant is... indisposed."

The implication is chilling and the fear hasn't abated—not since Ty Lee made his muscles weak as jelly as they dragged her away—choking his lungs. 

_I kept your bargain! I haven't so much as lit a candle!_ He wants to scream at her. But Azula had never made a promise, just an ultimatum, and besides: Azula always lies.

An exasperated sigh catches his attention.

It tears at his heart more than he expected.

The Dai Li march Mai past their cell (his cell, he reminds himself. Just his cell now) and unlocks the one next to him. Mai for her part seems bored by the whole proceeding, shoving off the guard who nudges her.

"I know how to walk, thanks," she insists dryly, sweeping into the cell. She's not dressed in prison clothes, but the long draped sleeves he's familiar with. Her hair is styled simply but is clean and there's color in her cheeks. All things considered, she looks healthy. She's clearly had someone in her corner, or perhaps more accurately, outside it.

Ty Lee stares him down from behind Azula, arms crossed. 

_I told you so,_ her glare says. 

"It's so great to have our little gang all back together again!" Azula says sarcastically. "Don't you agree Ty Lee?"

Ty Lee's gaze darts from him to Mai and a fake smile leaps to her lips. "It is great Azula!" she says, almost too chipper to be believable, eyes not leaving Mai's cell.

"Well we better let these two catch up." Remember time heals all wounds, Mai!"

"Does it?" Mai asks flatly.

"I guess you'll find out now, won't you?" 

___

It's not until after the bolt to her cell clanks shut that she cries for the first time, big gasping sobs that leave her breathless. And she is breathless-- the enormity of the loss knocking the wind from her lungs. She feels as though she's been trampled by a wild herd of jackalope. Her family, her friends, her freedom, her bending, and now, Zuko. There's nothing left for the Fire Nation to take, except her life.

(the very real worry about her possible imminent execution shoots back to the top of her list of concerns)

She's truly alone.

Alone in a place familiar only from a tale of caution from a deviant woman. Alone in a harshly lit cell with air so dry it's suffocating. The only water she can feel is the blood thrumming though her veins, a rhythmic reminder and taunt-- _you're alive_. There's no sound except her own shaky breath; she hadn't heard so much as a squeak as they dragged her further into the prison complex. The walls around her are solid and thick and the only opening is a slot in the base of the door.

She screams in frustration until her throat is raw and the tears run dry. She wait, masochistically, for a guard to come swear at her, baton swinging. But her cries fall on deaf ears and pull the vice in her chest tighter and tighter until she's gasping.

She's alone and so insignificant that it's not even worth punishing her.

She was never a dangerous prisoner in Azula's eyes-- she was leverage.

___

It doesn’t take much time to start to mend their wounds. Of course, it starts with them tearing them back open first.

"She’s trying to demoralize you and you let her," she drones, somewhere between in his fifth hour of alternating pacing and meditating. "She just used her to get at you."

"So what? I shouldn’t care about anything?" he snaps even though he knows in his heart she's right. Katara was a means to an end and he should've known better. Azula didn't take her because of any broken rule, she took her because she could.

"Like me?" Mai snarls aggressively, more emotive than she's been since the lock clicked. "Poor ol' indifferent Mai, what an apathetic jerk, I'm so glad I left her to rot in prison."

"Are you _serious?_ " he exclaims, momentarily stunned from his sulking. He peers through the bars of cell and can make out the edge of a voluminous sleeve. "You literally came to see me, in a prison! To yell at me! That's why you're here!"

"Because you broke up with me in a letter, Zuko."

"I was trying to protect you!"

"And I protected you! For what?"

"That's not fair, what would you have had me do? I didn't take a vacation, Mai. I left because our country is deeply broken and I can fix it."

"Don't patronize me with your ideals, that's not why I dated you."

"And that's why we broke up!" Zuko pinches the bridge of his nose. Mai has gone silent and he tries to muster the energy to continue the argument back but the anger has seemingly drained from his body and he just feels exhausted.

"You're right," he says after a moment. Mai makes a noise of surprise before he continues, "About Azula. She played me."

Mai's voice is still tight with anger. "She plays everyone Zuko, that's her whole thing."

"I know. I _did_ know. And I should've handled it better along with a lot of other things in my life, including us. And I'm sorry about that."

"That's... a lot of self-reflection," Mai offers, voice more neutral. He shrugs even though she can't see.

"I've had a lot of time on my hands."

"I'm sorry too," Mai says slowly, as if it's the first time she's considered the idea. He can't help his snort of amusement.

“You don’t have anything to apologize for,” he assures her.

“We're having this little heart to heart now or never Zuko," she says. "So I'm sorry."

He can't help himself. "Sorry about what?"

Mai groans. "I never wanted to meet you where you were at, even when you said you've changed. You’re softer than you pretend to be and I’m not that girl.”

“I was a shitty boyfriend. Maybe we were just oil and water.”

“Maybe it was just bad timing. For what it's worth, I think I did love you.”

His heart aches more now than it did when he wrote her that letter. Or watched her fade from view on the gondola. It's a statement filled with 'what ifs'.

“Imagine if we had stayed together?” he asks.

“C'mon you’ve been here long enough to know not to waste energy on hope. I expected better of you.”

"Everyone always does," he says darkly.

Mai sighs, "I expected better of your damn bleeding heart, Zuko."

He lightens up slightly. Only Mai could accuse him of having a bleeding heart. It'd surely come as a shock to everyone else he's known.

___

When her tears ran dry she had the wherewithal to continue Zuko's calendar in the corner of her arid box.

One year, ten months, thirteen days since the Agni Kai. Four months and twenty-seven days since her and Zuko had been separated.

She misses him fiercely. His wry smile and soft gold eyes and stupidly early meditation. His tales about turtle ducks and traveling with General Iroh. His comfortable silent presence. Losing to him in Pai Sho and relaxing under his hands plaiting her hair. And never moreso then when the nightmares come fast and furious and she screams herself awake, reaching out for comfort and only finding cold air. 

(Does he think of her when he shakes awake from a fear unseen, cries lodged in his throat? A selfish part of her hopes so.)

The loss feels realer than the multitude of others. Yes, the realist part of her prays for them each night, when she hopes Yue is listening. But there's no confirmation, no to bodies to bury and if she lets her mind wander enough she can imagine her family and friends still out there, looking for her and Zuko. Even Aang, even though Azula said Ozai had killed him. News of his death had been greatly exaggerated before after all.

She likes to think Toph will find them, heartbeats in bedrock. She'll peel open the walls of Katara's cell without breaking a sweat because she's the greatest earthbender alive and together they'll go find Zuko. It won't take long, Katara knows exactly where Zuko is. Or at least where she left him. 

Her heart aches with guilt. It was her complacency that put them in this situation. She should've been stronger, dragged him to Appa.

Grief rocks her gently, tempting her from her raft. She closes her eyes, curling up on floor. There shouldn't be an ocean in a desert like her cell. She listens closer.

The tide has a pulse.

___

"So why the girl?"

"She has a name," he says, a touch defensively. Mai doesn't respond but he knows she shrugging. "She's the only friend I have left."

A scoff.

"You wouldn't have believed you were alive either, if you were me."

"Probably not," Mai concedes, "But that has nothing to with the girl." A sigh. "Katara."

"We--" he starts, unsure how to continue. She used to hate him but he trusts her implicitly? She saved his life? He failed her and she stuck by his side despite that? If Azula's lightning had killed him and she had been imprisoned alone she would've already escaped and rained hell down on everyone because she's a force of nature and one of the most powerful benders he's ever seen? But he survived and she's also steadfast and loyal and we promised not to leave one another behind?

"We.. understand each other."

An understatement and more than he could ever hope to explain all in one.

___

The worst part is she understands Hama now.

She's alone. And hurting. And angry.

She understands the fury that drove Hama to become who she did.

But another part of her ticks the calendar and wonders if she's weaker than her. Hama spent years in prison and she's only been isolated for eight months. (eight months, seventeen days and some odd hours) Then again, she's a stronger bender than Hama ever was, of that she's confident. And she already has a head start.

She passes time by meditating, palms flat on her knees the way Zuko had shown her. She'd only agreed to learn for his sake. They don't meditate in Water Tribe, not like she's seen Aang or Zuko do. Water is not an element of control and nothing good comes from trying to control it. It's steady and persistent and will force change no matter how long it takes. They pray to living spirits, as dynamic as the water she's been blessed to wield.

But her goal today is shameful and she doesn't want to invite Tui and La's rebuke. Her goal today is control.

Gran Gran would faint if she could see her now, wasting away away in a Fire Nation prison, appealing to Agni himself the way the Crown Prince had shown her.

She breathes deeply, clearing her mind of the anger and frustration so omnipresent they've become her pysche's default. She pushes past that gate, steeling herself for the memories and guilt of her mourning list, its chorus increasingly unwanted and pitying the more she's tried to confine it. 

_"Oh, Katara."_

_"Katara it's okay."_

_"C'mon, sis."_

_"Kataraaa."_

_"Sweetness."_

_I don't need your pity,_ she thinks. Mourning was for the twilight hours between waking and sleep, when she could allow the grief to knock her out, battling with the nightmares to scar her conscience. But right now she's very awake, eager to exert control over her wandering mind. She slips below the fence that surrounds the pitying fields. She's begun to feel lighter but raw, like an exposed nerve.

_Look who decided to join!_

The last voice exists between memory and serenity, wry but not shaming. Zuko never bothered her subconscious when he was close enough to touch but had eagerly returned once they were separated again. He rarely criticized, apparently content to observe but even if he wouldn't comment on her control she preferred to practice alone.

She lets go, slipping below the water and leaving Zuko on shore. The water isn't her stormy ocean but a mountain lake, cool and clear. She's not dragged but floats willingly. She stretches her hands over the curve of her knees, throws her shoulders back and raises a pinky finger. 

Her foot flexes.

Her index finger raised and her foot relaxes.

She repeats the motion over and over, ignoring her questioning subconscious. She knows she'd sworn she'd never do it again but she's already broken that promise once before and besides, she's bothering no one but herself. Even the nosiest guard would only see a Water Tribe peasant, tapping her foot.

Besides, it doesn't hurt to have a final trick up her sleeve. It's worked once for a southern bender, it could surely work again. She would open the door herself without breaking a sweat because she's the greatest waterbender in a generation. No Toph neccessary. 

___

“So, Ty Lee,” he starts one morning when he see the sweep of Mai's sleeve retrieve the food left at her door.

“I told her not to. She should know she's playing with fire but she's more stubborn than you think,” Mai says, regret seeping into her voice.

“She seems to, uh, care for you?”

“I know you’re blushing, Zuko. Honestly.”

“Do you? Care for her?”  
"Obviously?"

"I mean.. like that?"

“No."

“It’s not because of me is it?”

A harsh snort. “No, you narcissist. I said I loved you, past tense. You didn't ruin romance for me.”

He thinks that's a little harsh. It's perfectly normal to wonder if his ex girlfriend, his sister's former best friend who he admittedly dumped in a shitty way, was secretly in love with his sister's other best friend who apparently saved aforementioned ex from certain death.

There’s a long silence.

“I can’t give her what she wants, even if I wasn’t in this filthy place. She knows that.”

“And yet.”

“The things we do for love,” comes the response, flat and sarcastic.

He's unprepared for the way cynical comment strikes him in the chest, clearing the horizon to what he’s been slowly realizing in Katara’s absence, what Mai had previously summarized nicely-- _"Why the girl?"_

His instinct is to deny it to himself-- _it's not love, not like that--_ but he realizes distressingly he can't.

 _(What if? What if they'd won? What if they'd escaped? What if they'd grown old together in the same small cell?)_

The point of all of this, of Azula's torment, was to build something that she can obliterate at her leisure. To break him and get the victory she's wanted from the moment he landed in that courtyard. _The showdown that was always meant to be, brother._

She'd used Katara against him. Over and over. He hadn't realized they'd been pushed to the cliff's edge until they were tumbling into the abyss below.

(Did she know?)

Something like a sob cracks out of his chest.

“There you go,” Mai says quietly. It’s not meant for him but he hears it all the same.

___

Ty Lee has the infuriating apologetic look he hates on her face when her and Azula come to visit. She sulks into Azula's shadow, directly outside Mai's cell. 

"Zuzu," his sister greets him.

"Azula."

"I've considered that I've been too harsh with you," she says with the same treacly voice she uses to mean the exact opposite. He snorts. Azula raises a thin brow. "You don't believe me?"

He would pay a pretty penny to see Mai's face right now. He bets its some reflection of his own. Azula snaps her fingers and a set of Fire Nation guards drag a body down the hallway between them. 

Katara hands limply in their grasp, limbs slack but eyes alert, inhaling sharply when she sees him. He pushes down the strangled noise threatening to escape him and fists his hands, looking past his sister to glare furiously at Ty Lee, who at least has the decency to look away. He looks her over, assessing for injuries in the low lightly beyond her blocked chi. Nothing sticks out beside her gauntness. She'd been thin before-- they both were, their sustenance is not particularly sustaining-- but now she looks downright skeletal.

"We remember the house rules, don't we?" Azula asks.

"Screw you, Azula," Katara grits out, glaring at her. His relief at seeing her is blunted by the darkness in her eyes, like the depths of the ocean. The way she watches Azula is beyond anger.

Her handlers yank her higher at the insult, smoke curling in rivulets from their hands. Katara bites her lip.

"Azula, stop."

Azula whips around to face Mai's cell. Ty Lee shrinks back, expecting violence but Azula only shoots verbal barbs. "Mai, your opinion is neither wanted or needed. All that's needed, is our rebellious pair's understanding. So I'll ask again," Azula says, turning back to face. "Do we remember the rules?"

"Yes! Agni, Azula, quit it," he snaps. The faint smell of burning flesh reaches his nose.

"Yes." Katara grumbles.

The guards unlock the cell across from him and his heart sinks. He'd believed, hoped maybe, that she'd be placed with him again. Where he could tend her burns and stroke her hair and make sure she's okay. 

Instead they throw her carelessly into the smaller cell and without use of her arms her head smacks against the floor. Katara groans, blood trailing from her nose.

Azula bends down to look at her.

"Anything else? You were all tough words earlier."

Katara spits at her, blood and saliva landing at her feet. "Fight me," she says flatly. Azula smiles, satisfied.

"Keep dreaming, peasant."

___

"You have to stop challenging Azula," he tells her wearily, when she reassures him that she's fine for the hundredth time. She'd set her nose when she regained feeling in her arms and the raw scorched skin on her arms isn't deep. She still has ten fingers and ten toes and her chi is flowing properly again-- it could have been worse.

"Why not?" she asks, weaving her fingers through the bars of her cell. Bars feel like a luxury compared to slick steel walls. She can just make out Zuko to the right in the low light, sitting at the edge of his own cell. Mai is invisible, somewhere in the shadowed part of her own cell but Katara knows she's listening.

"I just don't want you to give her an excuse," he says, letting implication do the heavy lifting. "Besides I don't even know if you can fight an Agni Kai." 

"I don't see why not?" she says, unable to keep the edge from her voice. 

"You're a waterbender, dummy."

"You know eavesdropping is rude, Mai."

"It's not like there's anything else to do in this place."

"Katara, Mai quit it!" Zuko says, exasperated. Katara bites her tongue for his sake. They're adults, or nearly anyway, he shouldn't need to referee between his ex-girlfriend and his... between his ex and her, his prison buddy.

"It's not about bending. An Agni Kai is a serious thing," he says soberly. "It's matter of honor." 

She laughs and Mai makes a bothered noise in the back of her throat. Katara ignores her. "We both know she cheated, it's not like she has any honor left." 

"I'm serious, Katara!" Zuko snaps. She raises her hands, rankled. Before she'd been taken away they rarely snapped at each other. They talked things out, or at worst, gave one another the silent treatment until they'd calmed down or a meal came. 

"Okay, then explain it to me."

Zuko looks at her and then sideways, to Mai's cell. She had spoken up for Katara briefly but she's not convinced Mai isn't a plant or a spy by Azula to keep eyes on them and Zuko's hesitance only adds to her suspicions. But Mai surprises again her by speaking first.

"I don't know what happened between you two and Azula but it was only an Agni Kai in the broadest sense possible."

Zuko sighs, "She's right, Katara. A proper Agni Kai is more of a spectacle of respectability."

"How else do you maim a child in front of the entire country?" Mai asks darkly. Zuko sighs but doesn't correct her. She remembers the feel of his scar under her hand and shudders. 

"What possible outcome is there Katara? What happens if she says yes?"

His voice is strained and he watches her with the same wariness and concern that he has since she was thrown in this cell. He rarely retreats into the shadows of his own space, always near the bars under the glow of torchlight where she can see him.

He looks tired, defeated even. Katara shoulders sink. 

"I-- I don't know."

___

This is what Katara expects.

She expects to be left alone, save for jeering guards and sporadic punishment for non-crimes. She expects to settle back into her and Zuko's comfortable routine, despite the two walls of bars and narrow hallway separating them. She expects to eventually, well, not trust but accept, Mai. Zuko is more than enough but for both their sake's a new person to talk to wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

Not that the gloomy girl is the most talkative but who knows, maybe prison changed her too.

She expects to continue her practice in the dead of night, out of sight of prying eyes.

She expects to keep her foolish hopes for rescue or escape to herself and surprise Zuko when the time comes. And she's hoping that moment comes later than sooner, when she has a chance to properly get a read on the other girl because she'll be hard pressed to justify leaving her behind.

What Katara doesn't expect is for those hopes and expectations to be dashed so quickly.

Azula returns a week after she left them. 

None of them have anything to say when she walks in with false cheer, no guards visible, just Ty Lee haunting her side as usual. Azula frowns, turning on her heel to take them all in before settling on Katara.

"What? No questions today?" she asks. Katara rolls her eyes, refocusing her attention on her cold porridge. It tastes more dusty than normal.

"C'mon peasant, I thought we had a good thing going here? I almost look forward to your silly little demands."

Katara sighs. "I demand an Agni Kai," she says monotonously through a mouthful porridge. 

Azula's smile is all teeth.

"Okay."

She looks up so sharply she nearly gives herself whiplash. Ty Lee looks surprised, Mai perturbed. Zuko looks both shocked and furious, jaw working like he wants to object on her behalf but knows better.

Her heart pounds in her ears. Two years, five months, six days. Countless indignities. And finally, _finally_ a chance for justice. Not revenge or closure, she tells herself, eyes fixed on Zuko's. Justice, for both of them.

She'd told Zuko and Mai that she didn't know what she'd do if Azula accepted her challenge. But now that the moment has come the answer is clear. 

_She'll win. Again._

"You can have your rematch in three day's time, peasant."

___

"Please don't do this."

"You're not going to change my mind."

"This isn't an Agni Kai, it's a public execution!"

"Do you have so little faith in me?"

"This isn't about faith! This isn't bravery, it's foolishness! They will never, never let you win, even if you beat her." He can't hide the bitterness in his voice, the first hand knowledge of how this game is played. "You will be made an example of. And I won't be there--"

_To save you._ The unfinished statement drops like lead.

"Then let me save myself for once."

He desperately switches tactics, reaching ineffectually through the bars of his cell. 

"You swore you wouldn't leave me behind."

She turns to him, finally, expression hard in the low light. She doesn't look like a seventeen year old should, no matter how high she holds her chin behind the bars of her own cell. She's wiry and sallow where his sister strong and well fed. 

And very possibly, insane.

(Right now, he's not sure if he's talking about his sister or the proud girl in front of him.)

"You have to trust me."

_You said yourself you don't know. There's not a plan to trust._

He begs instead. "Katara, _please."_

It's the end of conversation. She folds in on herself, eyes shut breathing steady, meditating like he showed her. He wants to rage at her, wishes he was close enough to shake her or maybe hold her close and cry. Her stubbornness alone could stop a komodo rhino in it's tracks and she's already gone and set her feet.

___

Mai is sitting at the front of her cell, watching her like an eagle hawk. It makes her feel self conscious and it's starting to piss her off.

"He's right you know."

"Yes," Katara admits. Mai arches an eyebrow.

"But you're still going to do it?" Mai continues, intrigued. Katara glares. 

"Yes, I wouldn't expect you to know what it's like."

"What? To fight for a lost cause?" she asks pointedly. Katara prickles, offended. Mai rolls her eyes. "It was a lost cause, we're the proof. I'm trying to _relate_ okay? I get it, sometimes what needs to be done is beyond our control. Some injustices demand a reckoning, even if it's a dumb idea."

Katara thinks it's the most she'd heard the dark haired girl say since she's been here. "Is that your idea of a pep talk?"

Mai snorts. "I just hope you have more luck than me"

"I don't need luck," Katara insists, watching the rise and fall of Zuko's chest in the dim light. Mai purses her lips. 

"No, I suppose you don't."

___

_It happens like this:  
_ _On the same altar where they were abandoned,  
_ _A girl burns bright enough for an entire world sacrificed for small men's pride.  
_ _And a boy lets tide pull him under to drown alongside her._

___

His first thought is she looks beautiful.

They've dressed her in silver and blues lest anyone forget she's Water Tribe. But the cloth is cut for firebenders, not waterbenders, and is sure to restrict her movement. It heightens his already sky high anxiety.

She's neat and clean-- the appearance of an honorable opponent the Fire Lord has deigned to grant an audience. Zuko knows the intent isn't honor at all, but rather perpetuate an air of respectability around the event about to unfold. _An execution,_ his mind pounds over and over. The upper crust of Fire Nation have been raised sufficiently bloodthirsty, so long as there is a proper mirage over it all.

_The savages can't govern themselves._

_The airbenders were preparing for war._

_The Earth Kingdom needs Agni's light and guidance._

_The Crown Prince shouldn't have spoken against his father._

Katara's strides are long and sure as she's guided into the arena, flanked by Dai Li agents. Her jaw is clenched and chin raised, the picture of defiance. Her mother's necklace, long hidden, dangles at her throat. Her hair is long enough to dust her shoulders but the front is pulled back into a tight, short ponytail at the crown of her head, flanked by thin braids.

_"Ugh! It's not a ponytail, Zuko! It's a warrior's wolf tail! I'm the warrior! This is my wolf tail!" Sokka insisted._

_"Are wolves supposed to be scary? Aren't they just big dogs?" Toph asked, smirking. Sokka threw his hands in frustration._

_"They'll sneak up on you in the snow and work together to rip your throat out before you even know what's happened," Katara said seriously, face illuminated eerily by the fire. "Our warriors are the pack, and they defend our tribe just as fiercely as southern wolves."_ _Sokka smiled at his sister, appeased._

The crowd hollers at her as she makes her way into the arena, eyes scanning the crowd, widening when they meet his. He'd told her he wouldn't be here but Azula apparently had other plans. His wrists are bound in manacles that chafe against his skin. They'd pulled him rather abruptly from his cell, hours after they'd taken Katara and Mai, who's more subtly restrained and seated to Ty Lee's right at the foot of Azula's empty seat. 

Azula is already waiting at the center of the platform but Katara stops at the short steps leading up to it. She moves past the entrance to the pit, coming to stand in front, the crouch, to his eye level.

Katara's voice is a whisper but it rises above the din of the arena."I need you to believe in me," she says softly. He does, _he does._ He knows she's a force to be reckoned with but these aren't normal circumstances. How can she say that when she's about to enter a noose of her own making? _They're going to kill you_ , he thinks, at the same time forcing a weak smile to his lips..

"Wait!" he says as she starts to pull away. The Dai Li are getting restless but he doesn't care, rolling the braided blue fabric he's worn as a bracelet for a year off his wrist. He slides it onto her arm, up around her narrow bicep. "Now you're ready."

She squeezes his hands reassuringly and the murmurs of the crowd seep back into his consciousness. They're none too kind, confused and uncomfortable by the familiarity between a peasant and the former crown prince in front of the graciousness of the Fire Lord. It's ruining the illusion-- all manners of sin can be masked by propriety, ritual, or tradition after all. 

It’s laughable, the demand for propriety when they had locked away children so long they’d emerged on the other side on the cusp of adulthood.

Katara lingers before him, gently running a thumb over rough skin of his scar. It feels like a goodbye.

A horrible thought enters his head that that's her intention. To succumb to an unwinnable fight in a blaze of glory and righteousness and revenge. He wants to vomit.

_You stupid, brave, idiot._

The crowd has lost all sense of subtlety, getting louder every moment she stands before him, gasping and jeering at her. At them.

_Damn you, all._

He can't even begin to explain his actions other than he is terrified out of his skull. He grabs her wrist, pulling her close enough to feel her breath on his lips. "No one left behind," he whispers, heart pounding in his ears. She smiles in a way he thinks is meant to reassure him but he's too afraid for it to break through. 

And then she presses her lips to his. 

It's awkward and clumsy and it shatters his heart on the floor.

The crowd loses it.

The Dai Li agent runs out of patience and yanks her back by the collar. Azula is smirking at the scene he's made. Her blue eyes remain fixed on his as she stumbles up the steps and he hopes beyond hope she understands the guilty plea in his eyes.

_Don't give up, stay with me. (_ _Better to suffer together than die alone.)_

It's too late to change course now but he prays anyway, whatever good that'd done him in the past.

___

Zuko had told her traditional Agni Kai were fought at sundown but now the sun is high overhead, beating down on the arena. A typically, sweltering Fire Nation afternoon. It's the farthest from the moon's rise or fall, from any advantage Katara could have and gives Azula every edge. As if she didn't already have enough.

Her bluster is fading fast and she fidgets with the faded blue fabric Zuko had placed on her arm. 

She doesn't not think of Zuko's lips on hers, the messy desperation of the way he'd kissed her back.

_He's right, you know._

She trains her eyes on Azula, on the crowd, on the procession of the Fire Sages toward them. Anywhere but Zuko and his begging eyes.

Azula finally accepting her challenge had seemed like finally seeing land, a reward after being tossed in the open ocean. But it's occurring to her now (too late, far too late) that it had all been an illusion. She's still adrift. Anger and fear are still crashing over her raft.

Grief is still waiting to pull her under.

But waterbenders can't drown, right?

She only has one chance to test that theory.

She steels herself to spare Zuko a glance as the crowd roars for the last figure entering the arena's stands. His face is blank as he looks past her to the newcomer and she follows his gaze. She notices the opulent armor first, then the resemblance to his children. The same ink black hair, the same sharp face.

Ozai has arrived.

Mai's words clamor to the forefront of her mind, Zuko's pleas fading to background noise.

_Some injustices demand a reckoning, even if it's a dumb idea._

_Katara, please._

_Please._

_Please._

___

A teacup of water has been placed on the ground so she has to bow to retrieve it.

Katara raises the water, threading it between her fingers like a needle. It drifts between liquid and solid and she surreptitiously shakes a hand, sucking her thumb. 

The fire sage is still droning on, to Azula’s obvious dismay. She’s tapping her foot impatiently, impervious to their father’s severe glare. He hadn't seen his father since he'd nearly shot him full of lightning. Ozai doesn't spare Zuko a glance, even though Azula had him trussed up like a hunting prize, on display as a warning; prison cloth against nobility's finery, scars on display from head to hip. Disgraced, damaged, docile. He wonders if his father notices the extra demeaning effort Azula has put in. If he had he wouldn't like it-- an easily defeated enemy is of no import. Only the most ferocious beasts are worthy of bragging rights.

What had Azula told Ozai about their defeat?

Katara closes her eyes, ignoring the sage's benedictions, drawing her thumb to her forehead and Azula twitches, expecting a pre-emptive attack. But when she pulls it away there’s no flying icicles, just a small bloody crescent in the center of her forehead. 

He knows the mark must have meaning, for her or waterbenders as a whole, though he’s unsure what. 

Noblewomen nearest him make a sound of disgust. _Peasant. Heathen. Savage._ But Katara looks peaceful, expression placid as she meets the High Sage’s bow, smirking at his unsettled expression.

The platform is cleared and Katara reanimates her modest orb.

His father waves Azula on, disinterested. 

Zuko can't get the sound of his own heart pounding out of his head.

___

Agni Kai's have too many steps for Katara's liking.

First the sages processed into the arena, then there were blessings and adulation. 

Now the Head Sage is speaking _again_. Katara rubs her finger over her thumb until the blood stops welling where she pricked it.

"With the Phoenix King's blessing, Her Royal Highness Fire Lord Azula, grants the prisoner, the last member of the Southern Water Tribe, a duel via Agni Kai."

 _The last of the Southern Water Tribe--_ surely the sage meant last waterbender? 

Azula smirks at her confusion, too self-satisfied to be lying. Katara recoils, as if she's been physically struck.

 _It's an execution , Katara! Please!_ Zuko had tried to warn her but she didn't want to listen, too self-righteous for her own good. She hadn't thought at all, she just couldn't resist the temptation of Azula granting her first wish.

All of it-- the ultimatum, the shared cell, the isolation, even Mai if she had to guess, leading to this final indignity.

_You never think these things through._

Sokka had told her that. But Sokka's gone. Sokka's gone and dad and Gran Gran and Bato-- they're all gone. She's the only one left.

_You’re the pride of the Southern Water Tribe_

Blood rushes in her ears and she recognizes the turmoil of pure rage building inside her. She'd stopped a rainstorm with it before. But forget rain. Forget waves of fear or anger. This pounding is hatred and it's a cyclone.

A stream of flame whizzes by her head-- the match has begun-- and Katara snaps. The handful of water freezes and she empties a thousand needles at Azula. One catches her on the cheek, two more pierce the fine silks of her clothing. The blood pooling on the Fire Lord's smooth skin satisfies her on a deeply barbaric level.

"Bad move, peasant," Azula hisses, arrogance disappearing. Katara ducks and rolls from the barrage of blue flame Azula looses in her direction. She hops to her feet, wobbling slightly on the edge of the dueling platform. She reaches and fuses the water from the ice needles laying on the ground behind Azula, already melted in the midday sun. The small ball knocks the Fire Lord in the back of the head, throwing her off balance enough that her next arc of flame goes high and wide. Katara takes her opportunity, pulling from her one advantage in this rigged battle.

A sweltering Fire Nation afternoon births a full wall of water, just in time to block the next bombardment of flaming balls.

The crowd gasps collectively, murmuring loudly about where the water had come from. Katara splashes some of her reserve on the platform, freezing it slick beneath Azula's feet. The other girl leaps nimby out of the way, flipping to send a double footed kick at Katara, who slides past on a banked wall of ice, pulling more water for her runway from the sweat pooling on the audience's foreheads.

Azula may be lacking the added power of the comet this time around but she's more collected, fighting her way toward Katara with narrow shots that force her onto the defensive, ice shields flying before her face. Azula smirks, winding up for a larger shot and Katara sets her feet, liquefying her icy defenses.

The blue flame corkscrews toward her and Katara strikes with the heel of her hand, water stretching out like a dome around her and pushing forward across the platform, knocking Azula flat on her ass. A collective gasp rises from the crowd.

Katara spares a glance at Zuko, who has a ghost of a smile of his face despite his deeply furrowed brow. But it quickly falls away and Katara hears the crackling before she sees it, whipping back to watch Azula leap to her feet, energy building at her fingertips eyes narrowed at Katara and her brother.

Katara's breath catches in her throat.

Zuko's wrists are shackled, in metal besides. Katara's gathered water is mostly splattered on the platform and wouldn't stop the electricity no matter which direction Azula shot.

Azula starts rotating her arms, the movement familiar from the courtyard years before. _Out of time_. Katara stops thinking, gives herself over to instinct and raising her hands.

___

Time stops, along with his sister and his father.

Screams and shouts of shock wind though the crowd until it sputters out and arena falls silent, everyone watching with fascination and confusion as the Fire Lord and Phoenix King struggle against themselves.

No one has ever seen this, Zuko realizes. Bloodbending. No one knew waterbenders could do this.

Except him of course.  
He hadn't forgotten about it, the way the Southern Raiders captain bent and contorted and the only chorus in his head had been _Thank Agni I'm on your side now._ He certainly hadn't forgotten how ferocious a fighter Katara was, nor how skilled a bender but the reminder is magnificent 

Guards are primed but motionless, unsure how to attack something they can't comprehend. Katara looks over her shoulder to him, her second direct acknowledgement since she appeared.

"Would you now? Knowing everything?"

The words are thunderous. His father speaks before he can formulate a response.

"What could we expect except such dishonorable fighting from a peasant? You're alone, little witch. The Avatar is dead. Your people--"

Katara turns her head slowly to look at his, eyes narrowed and fathomless in their hatred, far beyond any wrath she'd directed at Azula. She interrupts his monologue with a snapping motion and his father falls on the gilded platform like a puppet with his strings cut.

More screams ring through the crowd and servants rush to his side, turning over a lifeless body. Katara turns back to Azula with cool disaffection. She wears it neatly, this cold and calculating persona that's nothing like the girl he knows. He can't tear his eyes from his father's body, though he's more surprised than sorry. Did she lie to him, when he asked if she had a plan? He wonders if this was her goal all along, this white lotus gambit, from the first challenge she issued Azula. Or did she just see an opportunity and take it?

Katara is looking at him again, face placid but eyes still a storm, waiting for an answer. The question never was about his father after all-- that decision had been made long ago in front of a melon on a stick. It was always about Azula.

Azula howls, still under Katara's control—that much she makes clear as guards take a step in— forcing the Fire Lord to her knees before her people, her head writhing. 

"Would you now?" she asks again. Her arms have begun the shake from the stress of holding Azula, muscles too-well defined rippling under her skin, exhausted from the unusual exertion. She could have cut her down a thousand times over, has plenty of reason to send Azula to join their father. But she still wants him to decide. He settles on an answer, in his mind and his heart.

Suddenly, Azula collapses on the stone, gasping whiles Katara heaves, scrambling, Zuko thinks, to regain her hold on his sister. She reaches out toward him and his manacles crack under the force of ice.

And then all hell breaks loose.

___

_It happens like this:  
_ _In the heart of the Fire Nation, a boy and a girl finally find deliverance._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First and foremost -- there is a part two and many apologies for the semi-cliffhanger.
> 
> This came from me unable to get past the final Agni Kai. Zuko really asked Katara to accompany him on what could very well be a suicide mission to the heart of enemy territory and she said "word".  
> I waffled a bit on where I wanted Azula's character to go-- although I enjoy a good redemption arc I think in a world where Ozai wins, he would continue to enable/encourage her viciousness. Which manifests here as psychological torment (A primary goal of breaking Zuko, Katara would just be a bonus.) She was able to kind of scuttle her failure at the Agni Kai because Ozai won but she still failed and she has to punish Katara/Zuko for that.  
> Also Ozai's death was the first scene I wrote oops. Even though this is canon-divergent that was entirely based on that canon fact that everyone (Zuko, Katara, Sokka, Toph... all of Aang's past lives) were 100% "oh yeah he's gotta go".  
> And if Katara seems more waffly throughout it's because she is-- she doesn't have the same resignation Zuko had going into the final (canon) Agni Kai and spends more time working through it-- versus Zuko who is more "disappointed but not surprised."
> 
> Anyway, thank you for indulging my meta of my own work! Part two should be up hopefully in a week.


	2. The Legend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The makings of a myth to rival Oma and Shu themselves.

It happened like this:

Zuko, the disgraced, banished, traitor and his waterbending heathen died the day of the great Phoenix King’s public murder. Their lives ended unceremoniously with sharp jolts of electricity shot from the Fire Lord’s own righteous hand to avenge her father. 

The palace guards dragged them from the dueling floor, shaved their heads and dumped their bodies in the ocean on the far side of the island, under the shadow of the volcano. No grave, no memorial. One final dishonor for regicide by a savage and a traitor and still more than they deserved.

That’s the official record anyway. 

Short, to the point. Matter of fact, the way the histories of troublemakers always are in the eyes of those for whom they caused disorder. But the problem with records are witnesses. And despite the chaos of the day, that final Agni Kai had many.

They agreed on three basic facts:  
They had seen, scandalously, the Water Tribe savage kiss the traitor prince.  
They had seen the water witch subdue the Fire Lord and the Phoenix King with black magic.   
They had seen the scarred prince escape his chains and fight his way to the Water Tribe peasant’s side, two souls of a single mind, a swirl of red and blue, in intimate lockstep.

These facts cause quite the stir throughout the capital, even after the Phoenix King's funeral and the Fire Lord's proclamations of the pair's death. 

How could it not?  
  
It was the kind of story the greatest dramatists could only hope to conceive, flesh and blood turned to legend in death. It's the stuff poets wrote of, back in a time where words not war were the way of the Fire Nation. A revealing footnote in the way victors view their own history, the death of love as a sacrifice for the founding of an Empire. 

A tale as old as time, the ballad of star-crossed lovers, blessed by the spirits and cursed by circumstance. The sun and moon incarnate— what could possibly be more romantic than the heavens themselves? 

It has the makings of a myth to rival Oma and Shu themselves.

Not everyone agrees of course, the Fire Lord non-withstanding (it's said a mere mention of the former crown prince's name—or Agni forbid, the Water Tribe girl—is enough to be at best, banished, at worst, jailed, for blasphemy) The Caldera aunties tsk, as they’re wont to do. It’s not romance but a tale of caution. A mind bewitched by the solicitations of a foreign hussy. A stalwart son of Agni corrupted by supernatural deceptions. Graying grandfathers agree, warning their sons in smoky rooms over plum wine, that they'd do well to heed the parable—no woman, no matter how beautiful she is said to be, is worth eroding your honor. 

But even the sternest disapproval of their elders isn't enough for the legend to fade. Few would admit it, but secretly many a young Fire Nation woman—both noble and common— still dreamed of someone loving them so fiercely they’d sacrifice country, title, and family to be with them. And young men would scarcely admit it to themselves, much less anyone else, but they too longed to be loved despite their failures or shortcomings-- indeed, to be loved for those very things so fiercely and resolutely their lover would face the Fire Lord herself to show it.

In another world, these facts alone would foment the seeds of dissent. In another world, these facts would give space for hope to grow, for disgruntled and the disparaged to faithfully wait for their prince to return and take back his throne, a rightful king.

But there are other facts that remain true. The bodies are never seen, nor the pair heard from again. Despite itself, the Fire Nation stabilizes under the sheer force of will of a Fire Lord with every mechanism of force and coercion at her disposal. The story fades to something as intangible as the spirits-- a legend, a myth. 

And slowly, as they frequently do, people forget.

(Except in Jang Hui, where the villagers give offerings to the Painted Lady to guide the soul of a girl named Katara from the darkest depths of the spirit world to Agni’s light. Because before her iniquity, she’d been kind and true and Jang Hui is not the sort of place to forget that.)

The record stands.

__

_It happens like this:  
_ _The consequences of the Fire Lord's decades old torment finally come home to roost._

__

The stranger is unremarkable when he steps off the small rum runner into the thriving port. His ride slips away unnoticed among the giant naval ships and he slips into the throng making its way toward the maze of the main city. He's buffeted between sailors and soldiers and colonial transplants, drawn by the promise of the Caldera. Not so different from himself really.

The bustling of the capital on Victory Day is almost enough to mask the most unsavory aspects of the metropolis. Along the docks fish sellers hawk their product as the perfect addition to an evening feast. Red and gold flags link the narrow homes that make up sprawling neighborhoods of the volcano’s outer slope. 

The stranger pulls his cloak hood tighter, weaving through food stalls and explosive displays that line Azulon’s Walk, the main thoroughfare to the central city. At its end, the Inner Caldera would be polished and straight laced— tall black and red banners would line the streets and stately homes would fly their Fire Nation insignia from every window. Women would trot out their newest silk robes in shades of deep red and men would shine their uniform medals.

One day perhaps he would experience that foreign world, but for now he found comfort in the festival atmosphere of the Slope. The sun was still high on the horizon but that seemed to be no impediment for men and women of all stripes to trot out homemade liquor and wrinkled grandmothers to pass around sweets to the children avoiding being caught underfoot while hiding their fireworks from disapproving parents. 

He knew the average Fire Nation citizen wasn’t like the intimidating, vicious soldiers that patrolled the furthest reaches of the Fire Empire. Ostensibly, the empire was at peace despite its economic hard-comings. The people may be stuck in stasis but at least the country had stabilized, not like the first few years with the economy in free fall. Peace it turns out is difficult when all you've known is war.

Still the jubilation of the celebrations surprises him, even if it was less about the purported reason for the festival and more about the excuse for a party. It reminds him of the weddings celebrated in old Earth Kingdom fashion, hidden from sight from the culture crushing scrutiny of soldier and regional governors. Joy sprinkled through mountain valleys and the vast plains, an excuse to let your guard down for an evening.

He settles onto the makeshift stool at front window turned bar and pays for fire flakes. He turns down a questionable beer but accepts mango at the proprietor's insistence-- the barrel chested woman gives a firm nod and overcharges him for the treat but he pays her without complaint. Inside a younger woman, maybe a few years younger than himself rolls her eyes and brings him a paper cone filled with the fresh fruit. The bracelets on her wrist jingle, and hidden among the gold and copper he can see a flash of blue, a single thread twined around her wrist. She hurries back into the home when she notices his staring, studiously avoiding her mother. 

A sharp eyed observer would notice the smattering of similar displays in the mass of crowds, cuffs and hair ties no thicker than a needle. The country, if not ready to burst, wasn't the staid, unquestioning no man's land that categorized the previous Fire Lord's reign. Victory abroad was stirring complacency at home he'd been assured his last evening aboard the smuggler's ship. All the people needed was a little motivation.

A growing din makes its way down the street and the stranger finishes the last of his chili mango, steeling himself before leaving the makeshift shop. Taking a deep breath, he pushes through the crowd and steps onto the street.

The sole other occupant in the roadway, the Royal procession, comes to an abrupt stop. He approaches the palanquin with his father's warnings and his mother's conviction in his head. Armored guards rush to the front of the gilded litter in a phalanx. The grizzled man at the point shouts to him.

"Move out of the way, boy."

"I demand an audience with the Fire Lord."

Murmurs blaze through hordes gathered along the street and hanging out of windows. One doesn't just demand an audience with the Fire Lord. Surely, this deranged young man must be from the most backwater colony to have such ignorant audacity.

"Boy, I won't ask again," the lead guard says, flames appearing instantly in his palm. The man drops his cloak.

"I am here to challenge her to an Agni Kai."

Surely, the crowd decides, this man must be insane. No one's challenged the Fire Lord since... since... well, the lovers. And that had ended poorly for them. How could this young man not know? 

The Fire Lord pulls back the curtain of the palanquin, effectively silencing the blustering guard. She sits ramrod straight, black hair is pulled back into a severe topknot and her pale skin stands in sharp contrast to the pointed black armor around her shoulders. Designs of golden dragon twine across the breastplate. She looks younger than her years and watches him with a neutral curiosity. 

She steps down onto the uneven cobblestones lightly. The stranger roots his feet into the ground, keeping his chin level and resisting the urge to duck and run.

The crowds lining the street retreat slightly toward the buildings. The Fire Lord has paraded through the Caldera on Victory Day for some two decades. Not once has she stepped from her litter. Waved and even smiled, but never set foot on the grounds outside the Inner Caldera. Certainly never _spoken._ Neither of those changes to the norm could mean anything good.

"So, you issued a challenge," she says. She sounds amused, addressing him in the same cloying tone as you would a trouble making child. "And on what grounds?"

The crowd is dispersing rapidly, those who stay watching with bated breath. Among the remaining onlookers, many hair-thin bracelets of blue.

"My name is Tatsu, and I demand an Agni Kai for my father’s honor.”

"And who is your father that you think yourself important enough for me to bother?"

He raises his voice, bellowing clearly for gathered crowd to hear. "My father is Crown Prince Zuko and I challenge you as the rightful heir to the throne."

The careful neutrality of the Fire Lord's expression vanishes in an instant, metallic eyes glinting furiously and a frown cutting creases into her face. The gasps that had cut through the air at the young man's claim calm instantly. It's quieter than a temple on the street, just the rustling of banners in the gentle summer breeze.

The silence is cut by the snap of electricity, bursting forth from the Fire Lord's fingertips without warning. The young man raises his hands, absorbing the wild energy in one and sending it careening past the tiled roofs with the other. The Fire Lord's eyes narrow.

"So, my brother did spawn," she spits. He smiles to himself. _Thrice,_ he thinks with a laugh, keeping the thought to himself. Insurance, should this go bad. "The weakness in our bloodline continues."

Confusion overtakes the crowd. Those who stepped away afraid, push back to hear the revelations from the street. This stranger claimed to be the heir to the throne, the disgraced prince's _son_ but Prince Zuko had died years before. That was the one of the points of Victory Day after all-- victory over the Avatar and foreign threats and victory over the traitors who sought to destroy them from within. Any other story was just myth, right? Right?

Yet, Fire Lord Azula herself confirmed his survival, despite her record to the contrary. And she granted this boy the legitimacy of a duel. An advisor musters the courage to go whisper in the Fire Lord's ear but she sends him scurrying with a snarl. She paces across the street.

"Was redirection all brother dearest taught you, _nephew_? He always was prone to run away from his problems."

"My father was a stronger person than you'll ever be," Tatsu insists, emphasis on the past tense, building in backstops. Azula scowls. 

"We'll see," she says, removing her armor. "I don't plan on leaving loose ends this time."

"From what I've heard, you didn't plan on it last time either." The words are out of his mouth without a thought and internally he winces-- too much of his sister there and even she'd agree that's never the best route. He's meant to be magnanimous and controlled. To present himself as not just a viable alternative but _the_ alternative-- so long as he survives. 

His flippancy has the effect of shredded what little pretense still remained, a corkscrew of blue flame flies toward him and he draws a wall of fire to protect himself. Azula sends a stream of fire toward him that skirts close the crowds and sends people scurrying. Tatsu draws the flames toward him, rotating his hands as though he held a sphere and sends the remnants of the attack back toward her

"If you're lucky, maybe you can share the same cell your dear old dad did," the Fire Lord taunts. "It was our Uncle's before him. Generations of weak willed men," she yells, twin discs of flames spinning toward him. He rolls out of its way, keeping himself centered on the road. No need for anyone else to get hurt. "Perhaps it's better to eradicate that completely."

The Fire Lord was surely once a prodigy but at fifty years old her firebending is formal and predictable. She constantly opens up holes and after absorbing several more strikes, he exploits those flaws.

A thin but unmistakable bolt of lighting arcs through the air, striking her shoulder. She falls to the ground with a grunt.

Guards rush toward her but he summons the electricity again to his hands. "The Fire Lord accepted my challenge," he warns, his voice bellowing the same as before. "Everyone in this crowd is a witness to our agreement and our terms."

Azula gasps on the dirty ground as he approaches, face twitching in pain but managing to look imperious despite it. "I won't yield," she says. "And you won't have a throne so long as I breathe. I'm betting you're spineless as Zuko. He didn't have the stomach to kill me. The water bitch could have but she waited for him and he couldn't do it. Couldn't kill his own family," she rasps, smiling toothily at him. "Would you really kill your own aunt?"

"You are my blood but you're not family." His voice is a whisper, meant for the Fire Lord's ears and hers alone. "I'm here for my father's throne but I'm also my mother's son. A son of the Southern Water Tribe," he adds, electricity still building in his hands. The mention of the Water Tribe causes angers to flash in Azula's eyes and she struggles to lift her hand, trying to summon any fire.

"I'm here for justice long overdue."

Electricity crackles through the air one final time.

(And the record is rewritten.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, THANK YOU for all the feedback and kind words on the first part of this! I'm sure this epilogue of sorts is probably different than what you may have been imagining but this was always the original ending to this two part fic.
> 
> I know this was far shorter than the first chapter and if you're dying to know what happened in between (and maybe you aren't, which probably makes more sense!), I will be making a short series set in this AU world. The next part is already outlined and a third part is in works. I'm hoping to post the next part after I post a new chapter to [war is never cheap dear](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27128371/chapters/66246280) (a shameless plug if you like the Ozai wins premise).


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